The young teacher of Tongji University has developed a super hydrophobic and extremely flexible reduced graphene oxide/polysiloxane composite aerogel, and has used this single polysiloxane aerogel material to prepare a high-performance and versatile flexible sensor array for efficient temperature, strain and pressure sensing.

The synthesis of the aerogel material is based on the following three steps: 

(1) using amine propyl triethoxy silane to crosslink and restore graphene oxide to obtain reduced graphene oxide aerogels modified by aminated silane; 

(2) polyethylene-methyl dimethoxy silane polymer was obtained by free radical polymerization of vinyl methyldimethoxysilane; 

(3) Graphene/polyorganosiloxane composite aerogels were obtained by further cross-linking the rgo aerogels with vinyl methyldimethoxylsilane and polyethylene methyldimethoxylsilane polymers.

The aerogel material has a coral like three network nanostructure consisting of cross-linked reduced graphene oxide nanosheets, polyethylene poly (methyl siloxane) and poly (vinyl methyl siloxane). Because of its unique three network structure, the aerogel combines superhydrophobic, high compressibility, high flexibility, super elasticity, excellent processability, and sensitivity to temperature, pressure and strain. These excellent properties are not available in traditional materials. In addition, the flexible multifunctional sensor array based on the reduced graphene oxide/polysiloxane aerogel can detect temperature at 20-100℃, wide range strain of 0.1-80% and wide range pressure of 10 Pa-110 kPa, and it has high sensitivity and good durability for compression, bending and moisture resistance. This work will provide new ideas for the synthesis of flexible multi-functional porous materials and the design of multifunctional flexible electronic skin.

Conclusion: the synthesis of this multifunctional flexible graphene/polysiloxane aerogel will provide more ideas for more efficient temperature, strain and pressure sensing, thereby improving the utilization efficiency of materials.