Fatigue Resistant Bioinspired Composite from Synergistic Two-Dimensional Nanocomponents

Portable and wearable electronics require much more flexible graphene-based electrode with high fatigue life, which could repeatedly bend, fold, or stretch without sacrificing its mechanical properties and electrical conductivity. Herein, a kind of ultrahigh fatigue resistant graphene-based nanocomposite via tungsten disulfide (WS2) nanosheets is synthesized by introducing a synergistic effect with covalently cross-linking inspired by the orderly layered structure and abundant interfacial interactions of nacre. The fatigue life of resultant graphene-based nanocomposites is more than one million times at the stress level of 270 MPa, and the electrical conductivity can be kept as high as 197.1 S/cm after 1.0 × 105 tensile testing cycles. These outstanding properties are attributed to the synergistic effect from lubrication of WS2 nanosheets for deflecting crack propagation, and covalent bonding between adjacent GO nanosheets for bridging crack, which is verified by the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The WS2 induced synergistic effect with covalent bonding offers a guidance for constructing graphene-based nanocomposites with high fatigue life, which have great potential for applications in flexible and wearable electronic devices, etc.