Self-sensing polymer composite containing a continuous and periodic graphene monolayer

Embedding the capability of self-sensing to polymeric materials provides tremendous opportunities for developing smart materials with highly important applications. However, a facile method that can introduce this capability to different polymers beyond strain sensing remains elusive. Here, we report a strategy of incorporating a continuous graphene sheet as an electric probe into polymer matrices for developing self-sensing composites. The resulted composite demonstrates impressively high conductivities of 290 S/m at a graphene volume fraction (VG) of 0.00068, a good electrical recovery at a cyclic elastic strain of 30% and a strain-sensing upper limit of 80%. Moreover, the glass transition, melting, and photodegradation process of different polymers can also be monitored in situ, and the corresponding glass transition temperature (Tg) and melting point (Tm) can be calculated. Our work paves the way for the development and application of novel self-sensing polymer composites with high sensitivity and versatility based on two-dimensional (2D) materials.