Dendronized graphenes: remarkable dendrimer size effect on solvent dispersity and bulk electrical conductivity

Abstract

Graphene as a newly emerged carbon material has attracted considerable attention due to its outstanding properties and a wide range of fascinating applications. However, its real use is limited due to the lack of a method for mass production. The reduction from graphene oxide has been considered as one of the potential ways for mass-scalable preparation. However, it suffers from re-stacking of the final graphene sheets after reduction due to the strong intersheet interactions. To address this, we report here a strategy using three-dimensional and bulky dendritic structure to functionalize graphene sheets. We found that the treatment of the acylchlorinated graphene oxide with dendritic anilines can easily load dendritic wedges to graphene oxide sheets and simultaneously reduce graphene oxide to graphene. The afforded dendronized graphene products possess excellent dispersibility in a variety of solvents. The dispersity shows a great dependence on the size of the dendritic structure, in which the larger dendritic substituents afford a better dispersity. Surprisingly, dendronization with an appropriate size of dendritic structure does not hamper but can even greatly enhance the bulk electric conducting capability.