Highly conductive, free-standing and flexible graphene papers for energy conversion and storage devices

Abstract

A simple and scalable method was proposed to fabricate graphene papers, and the graphene sheets were prepared using conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The CVD graphene papers possess much higher electrical conductivity of 1097 S cm⁻¹, compared with other reported carbon-related papers (graphene, carbon nanotube, etc.). The graphene papers have good flexibility with only <5% loss of electrical conductivity after mechanically bending 500 times. Such free-standing graphene papers can replace expensive Pt/FTO counter electrodes of dye-sensitized solar cells with better energy conversion efficiency, and also be used as anodes of lithium ion batteries possessing a superior high-rate capacity and cycling performance. The highly conductive, free-standing and flexible graphene papers reveal potential in high-performance, flexible energy conversion and storage devices.