Highly Conductive Microfiber of Graphene Oxide Templated Carbonization of Nanofibrillated Cellulose

Microfibers with conductivity of 649 +/- 60 S/cm are introduced through a carbonization of well-aligned graphene oxide (GO) - nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) hybrid fibers. GO acts as a template for NFC carbonization, which changes the morphology of carbonized NFC from microspheres to sheets while improving the carbonization of NFC. Meanwhile, the carbonized NFC repairs the defects of reduced GO (rGO) and links rGO sheets together. The GO templated carbonization of NFC as well as the alignment of the building blocks along the fiber direction leads to excellent conductivity. Conductive microfibers are evaluated as lithium ion battery anodes, which can be applied in wearable electronics. This approach to make conductive microfibers and the low cost raw materials used in this work may be applied to other carbon based conductive structures.