Fabrication Tough and Electrically Conductive Graphene-Based Nanocomposite Gels with Self-Oscillating Performance

Stimulus-responsive polymer gel materials were studied and applied widely in many fields in recent years. However, the poor electrically conductive property and even with poor toughness largely limit their extensive applications in more expanded fields. Herein, we report a novel kind of self-oscillating gels poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid-co-Fe(phen)3)/reduced graphene oxide (poly(AM-co-AC-co-Fe(phen)3)/RGO) with excellent electrical conductivity, and compressive strength via an in-situ polymerization accompanied by an ultrasonic assisted method. The dispersed reduced graphene oxide (RGO) improved the conductive and mechanical properties of the prepared materials remarkably. The conductivity of gel reached to 16.88 S·m−1 with the content of 0.34 wt% RGO and the maximum fracture pressure was 4.1 MPa, which is as high as human cartilage. Besides, the prepared gels exhibited the self-oscillating behavior in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) solution free of catalyst. Therefore, the prepared materials have potential applications as artificial cartilage and soft electron instrument.