Ultrahigh energy density of polymer nanocomposites containing electrostatically self-assembled graphene oxide and hydrotalcite nanosheets

In this paper, the nanofiller consisting of graphene oxide (GO) and organically modified hydrotalcite (HT) was fabricated via the electrostatic self-assembly and further reduced and incorporated into the polyimide (PI) matrix to prepare superior nanocomposite films with high energy storage density. It was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that the insulating HT facesheets were attached well onto the GO film to form a stable sandwich structure. The synthesized ternary nanocomposite film (1.0 rGO@HT/PI) showed high breakdown strength of 175.9 kV/mm and ultra-high dielectric constant at 10 kHz (epsilon r = 35.4), about 10 folds more than pure PI (epsilon r = 3.4), resulting in a maximum energy storage density of 4.84 J/cm3. On account of electrostatic selfassembly, HT nanosheets can efficiently reduce the contact area between graphene oxides and inhibit the formation of conductive networks, thus maintaining a high level of breakdown strength and increasing the energy storage density of the nanocomposite films.