Poly(ionic liquid)s as phase-transporter for graphene oxide liquid crystals from aqueous to non-polar organic phase via noncovalent functionalization

ABSTRACT

We synthesise a novel poly(ionic liquid) (PIL) and develop a procedure that allows the phase transfer of graphene oxides (GO) from water to organic solvent, retaining graphene oxide liquid crystal (GOLC) phase in various organic solvents, especially non-polar organic solvents. PIL ([PEP-MIM]DBS) is exploited in this procedure as a noncovalent functional material that is capable of transporting GO from aqueous to non-polar organic phase. PILs can decorate GO noncovalently and keep GO nano-sheets exfoliated in solid-state PILs/GO hybrids, which can well redisperse in organic solvents without any agglomeration. This expands the number of known solvents which can support GOLC phase to dimethyl formamide, dimethyl sulfoxide, acetonitrile, tetrahydrofuran, and a number of other non-polar organic solvents, many of which were not known to afford GOLC phase prior to this report, such as dichloromethane, tetrachloromethane, dichloroethane and tetrachloroethane.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Poly(ionic liquid)s
• graphene oxide
• liquid crystal in non-polar organic solvent

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable help and great support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2232018D3-07 and No. 2232018D3-24), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M591573) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21404024 and 51803103). The work was funded by State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Donghua University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

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Funding

This work was supported by  the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2232018D3-07 and No. 2232018D3-24), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M591573) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21404024 and 51803103). The work was funded by State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials，Donghua University.