News
Featured Article by Researchers of FORTH/ICE-HT
Reproduced from NANOSCALE, Vol.: 11 Iss.: 3 inside back cover, by permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry
Collaborating Faculty Members and researchers of FORTH / ICE-HT published their research results as a featured article in the Nanoscale. The title of the article is:
“3-Arm star pyrene-functional PMMAs for efficient exfoliation of graphite in chloroform: fabrication of graphene-reinforced fibrous veils“,
Nanoscale, 11, 915-931 (2019)
by Gkermpoura, S.S., Papadimitriou, K.D., Skountzos, E.N., Polyzos, I., Pastore Carbone, M.G., Kotrotsos, A., Mavrantzas, V.G., Galiotis, C., Tsitsilianis, C.
The artwork has been chosen to appear on the inside back cover of issue 3 of the journal.
Short revision of the article:
Tailor-made, well-defined, 3-arm, star-shaped pyrene-functional PMMAs were designed as dispersing agents for the liquid phase exfoliation of graphite. Stable few-layered graphene sheets were achieved in chloroform, with very low polymer/graphite mass ratio. Additionally, detailed all-atom Molecular Dynamic simulations were performed to provide insights into the exfoliation mechanism. Finally, the G@(PMMA-Py)3 hybrids were successfully incorporated into a PMMA matrix by electrospinning to fabricate graphene-based nanocomposite fibrous veils. The PMMA/G@(PMMA-Pyn)3 elecrospun fiber mats exhibit a modulus enhanced by a factor of 4.4 for the 1.5 wt.% G@(PMMA-Pyn)3 nanocomposite.