One-pot synthesis of mechanically robust hierarchical graphene-polyethylene aerogels

Fabricating mechanically robust graphene aerogels (GAs) without compromising their notable features including superelasticity, large surface area, high porosity, and low density is challenging. This work presents a new onepot strategy based on ambient drying to fabricate a three-dimensional (3D) graphene-polyethylene aerogel (GPEA) with a unique hierarchical porous structure, in which the highly porous polyethylene is encapsulated by graphene frameworks. The hierarchical G-PEA exhibited substantially enhanced compressive strength while maintaining low density and superelasticity comparable to those of bare GAs. The G-PEAs with 5 wt% PE (GPEA5) showed a significant improvement (up to 2083 %) in compressive stress compared to bare GAs, which can be attributed to the porous PE support within the GA framework. The G-PEA5 retained 94 % of its compressive stress after 100 compression cycles, which is still higher than that (similar to 80 %) of bare GAs, and maintained good elastic recovery. The designed hierarchical G-PEAs show great promise in the applications that require outstanding mechanical properties.