Conductive graphene-based macroscopic membrane self-assembled at a liquid-air interface

Free-standing graphene-based macroscopic membranes, which are characterized by a layered structure and tunable conductivity, are prepared by a self-assembly process at a liquid-air interface. Since the preliminary results indicate that it is hard to construct macroscopic graphene membranes solely by low-temperature exfoliated graphene nanosheets (LGNs) at the liquid-air interface, graphene oxide nanosheets (GONs), as the stacking template and sticking component, are introduced into the assembly process of graphene layers to promote the formation of layer-by-layer stacking structure and help form a conductive macroscopic membrane. The conductivity of such a graphene-based membrane can be tuned by changing the GON fraction in the LGN/GON hybrid membrane.