From Graphene Oxide Liquid Crystal to Artificial Muscle

Graphene Oxide Liquid Crystal (GOLC) is an intriguing 2D carbon based soft material, which exhibits nematic type colloidal discotic liquid crystallinity with the orientational ordering of graphene oxide flakes in good solvents, including water. Since our first discovery of GOLC in aqueous dispersion at 2009, this interesting mesophase has been utilized over world-wide for many different application fields, such as liquid crystalline graphene fiber spinning for wearable devices, highly ordered graphene membrane/film production for water treatment, and nanoporous graphene assembly for energy/environmental applications. Interestingly, GOLC also allow us a valuable opportunity for the highly ordered molecular scale assembly of functional nanoscale structures. This presentation will introduce our current status of GOLC and other 2D material research particularly focusing on the nanoscale assembly of functional nanostructures, including highly oriented 1D fibers, 2D films and 3D nanoporous structures. In particular, human muscle inspired graphene based nanocomposite fiber actuators will be highlighted along with its interesting demonstration for biomimetic behaviors.