Humberto Terrones, Shaoli Fang, Alin Cristian Chipara, Nestor Perea Lopez, Xavier Lepró, Lakshmy Pulickal Rajukumar, Guankui Long, Mauricio Terrones, Ana Laura Elías, Yi Huang, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Ray H. Baughman, Peishuang Xiao, Márcio D. Lima, Ali E. Aliev, Simin Feng, Seon Jeong Kim, Na Li, Huicong Chang, Mikhail E. Kozlov, Fan Zhang, Pengfei Chu, Ningbo Yi, Yongsheng Chen, Jae Ah Lee, Long Zhang, Yingpeng Wu, Carter S. Haines, Jiyoung Oh, Zhong Zhang, Narayanan Tharangattu Narayanan, Tengfei Zhang, and Lu Huang
It is a challenge to fabricate graphene bulk materials with properties arising from the nature of individual graphene sheets, and which assemble into monolithic three-dimensional structures. Here we report the scalable self-assembly of randomly oriented graphene sheets into additive-free, essentially homogenous graphene sponge materials that provide a combination of both cork-like and rubber-like properties. These graphene sponges, with densities similar to air, display Poisson's ratios in all directions that are near-zero and largely strain-independent during reversible compression to giant strains. And at the same time, they function as enthalpic rubbers, which can recover up to 98% compression in air and 90% in liquids, and operate between -196 and 900 °C. Furthermore, these sponges provide reversible liquid absorption for hundreds of cycles and then discharge it within seconds, while still providing an effective near-zero Poisson's ratio.