Graphene-based free-standing bendable films: designs, fabrications, and applications

Abstract

Energy crisis and environmental pollution lead to the dual pressures of worldwide exploration for new materials applied in energy storage and environmental protection. Graphene with excellent mechanical and electrochemical properties is considered a promising material to solve these problems by applying in energy storage and conversion, desalination and so on. Particularly, with the demand for flexible, portable devices in recent years, developing flexible, self-supporting materials is a hot but difficult spot. Therefore, there are a lot of researches on developing the graphene-based free-standing bendable film in recent years and its advance is reviewed in this paper, which includes fabricating techniques and applications. The preparation methods are categorized into five types to introduce, including vacuum filtration, layer-by-layer self-assembly, vacuum-assisted self-assembly, mechanical compression, and solvent evaporation. In the part of applications, the current applications and challenges of graphene-based free-standing bendable films in energy storage and environmental protection are discussed. © 2020