Centers and Institutes
Published June 9, 2017 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Compressed glassy carbon: An ultrastrong and elastic interpenetrating graphene network

Creators

  • 1. Yanshan University
  • 2. Carnegie Institution of Washington
  • 3. University of Chicago
  • 4. Pennsylvania State University

Description

Carbon's unique ability to have both sp2 and sp3 bonding states gives rise to a range of physical attributes, including excellent mechanical and electrical properties. We show that a series of lightweight, ultrastrong, hard, elastic, and conductive carbons are recovered after compressing sp2-hybridized glassy carbon at various temperatures. Compression induces the local buckling of graphene sheets through sp3 nodes to form interpenetrating graphene networks with long-range disorder and short-range order on the nanometer scale. The compressed glassy carbons have extraordinary specific compressive strengths—more than two times that of commonly used ceramics—and simultaneously exhibit robust elastic recovery in response to local deformations. This type of carbon is an optimal ultralight, ultrastrong material for a wide range of multifunctional applications, and the synthesis methodology demonstrates potential to access entirely new metastable materials with exceptional properties.

Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.

Files

sciadv.1603213.pdf

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Supplementary materials
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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1126/sciadv.1603213
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:10967

Funding

National Science Foundation
EAR-1214376
National Science Foundation
EAR-1361276
NSFC
51672238
NSFC
51421091
NSFC
51332005
NSFC
51272227
NBRPC
2011CB808205
National Science Foundation
Distinguished Young Scholars of Hebei Province of China
Postgraduate Innovation Project of Hebei Province of China
00302-6370007
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
W31P4Q-13-1-0005
U.S. Department of Energy
DE-SC0001057
DOE-NNSA
DE-NA0001974
DOE-BES
DE-FG02-99ER45775
DOE-BES
DE-AC02-06CH11357
NSFC
51525205
National Science Foundation
EAR-0968456

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Institutes & Centers
Center(s) or Institute(s)
Center for Advanced Radiation Sources