Abstract:

High performance nanocomposites can potentially solve the bottleneck problems of miniaturization and lightweight in the field of aerospace. Although two-dimensional carbon-based nanosheets, such as graphene, MXene, show excellent mechanical and electrical properties, the properties of carbon-based nanocomposites are much lower than expectation. It was found that the void is an essential factor to decrease the properties of carbon-based nanocomposites, but usually neglected in the past decades. Herein, we applied both focused ion beam and scanning electron microscopy tomography (FIB/SEMT) and nanoscale x-ray computed tomography (nano-CT) to reconstruct the void microstructure of carbon-based nanocomposites. These results overturned the conventional densely stacked structure model of carbon-based nanocomposites. We further developed a simple and effective densification strategy to cure the voids using a sequential bridging process with different interfacial interactions. The resultant sequentially bridged carbon-based nanocomposites[1-5] achieved dramatical improvement in mechanical properties, resistance to cyclic mechanical deformation, oxidation, and stress relaxation etc.

References:

1.  W. Li, T. Zhou, Z. Zhang, L. Li, W. Lian, Y. Wang, J. Lu, J. Yan, H. Wang, L. Wei, and Q. Cheng*. Science. 2024. Accepted.

2.  J. Yang, M. Li, S. Fang, Y. Wang, H. He, C. Wang, Z. Zhang, B. Yuan, L. Jiang, R. H. Baughman* and Q. Cheng*. Science. 2024. 383, 771-777.

3.  S. Wan, X. Li, Y. Chen, N. Liu, Y. Du, S. Dou, L. Jiang, and Q. Cheng*. Science 2021. 374, 96-99.

4.  S. Wan, Y. Chen, S. Fang, S. Wang, Z. Xu, L. Jiang, R. H. Baughman* and Q. Cheng*. Nat. Mater. 2021. 20, 624-631.

5.  S. Wan, X. Li, Y. Chen, N. Liu, S. Wang, Y. Du, Z. Xu, X. Deng, S. Dou, L. Jiang, Q. Cheng*. Nat. Commun. 2022. 13, 7340.

Biography:

Dr. Cheng focused his research on bioinspired polymer nanocomposites. He is now a full professor of the School of Chemistry, Beihang University and University of Science and Technology of China. He has published more than 100 papers, including Science, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, and PNAS, etc. He has received grants from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He was awarded Meituan Green Tech Award, the Beijing Distinguished Young Zhongguancun Award, Mao Yi-sheng Science and Technology Award-Beijing Youth Science and Technology Award, China Young Scientist Award of Composites Society, the Chinese Chemical Society Award for Outstanding Young Chemist, and the Cheung Kong Scholar Award for Young Scholars.

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME