Exfoliation of graphene with an industrial dye: teaching an old dog new tricks

We describe the exfoliation, processing and inclusion in polymer composites of few-layers graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) by using the molecule indanthrone blue sulphonic acid sodium salt (IBS), a very common industrial dyestuff and intermediate for liquid crystal preparation. We show how IBS can be used to successfully exfoliate graphite into few-layers graphene yielding highly stable dispersions in water. To demonstrate that the method is suitable for applications in composites, these graphene-organic hybrids are processed into a commercial commodity polymer (polyvinyl alcohol, PVA), enhancing its electrical bulk conductivity by ten orders of magnitude by adding as few as 3% of GNP. We attribute the good performance of IBS in dispersing GNPs in water to its amphiphilic nature and the tendency to self-assemble through pi-pi interaction of its large aromatic core with the graphene surface. The molecule studied here, unlike many specialty organic surfactants or solvents commonly known to exfoliate graphene, is already used as a blue pigment dispersant additive in the industrial production of polymers and thus does not need to be removed from the final product.