Highly dispersed graphene ribbons produced from ZnO-C core-shell nanorods and their use as a filler in polyimide composites

Long and few-layer thickness graphene ribbons (GRs) were fabricated through an efficient process from a well-ordered array of ZnO-C core-shell hexagonal nanorods that were formed by thermally heating zinc acetate dihydrate in a sealed chamber. The lengths and widths of the GRs were as high as ∼50 μm and 100-400 nm, respectively. The GRs could be highly dispersed (∼2 mg mL^-1) in 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone and exhibited a good electrical conductivity (5107 S m^-1). The highly dispersed and highly conductive GRs were applied to the fabrication of a GR-polyimide composite film that exhibited good mechanical properties while preserving the film transparency.