Understanding and optimizing roll-to-roll manufacturing of high-strength, transparent polymer composite films

Our team has produced composite thin films with the highest reported tensile strengths.  These films have been produced using roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques that can be adapted to current manufacturing lines. Small amounts of thermally reduced graphene oxide (tr-GO) particles (1% by wt) can be added to a ultra high molecular weight polyethylene matrix to produce thin films with tensile strength of 4.23 GPa.  These films are extruded under high amounts of shear which serves to exfoliate the graphene oxide layers.  These layers are further exfoliated and distributed throughout the polymer matrix in post drawing.  The drawing process aligns the polymer chains and increases the crystallinity of the fim.  This application proposes to demonstrate that by exfoliating tr-GO layers these films can be made optically transparent as well as high strength.  Tessellated Scientific in partnership with the University of Notre Dame will fabricate, test, and characterize films as we vary critical process parameters to include: different matrix additives; extrusion time and extruder rpm speed; heated drying, and post drawing temperature and rate.  Morphology of the films will be studied for optimization.  The goal of this work will be to maintain the demonstrated mechanical strength of these films while also achieving an optical transmittance of >80%.