Graphene has many unique and wonderful properties, however, fabrication and stability of large macromolecular graphene sheets have proven extremely difficult. Thus is due in part to time and cost of production and also due to the inability to fabricate large single domain sheets. Graphene (G) is most usually produced with a large number of small nanometre size domains. Graphene Oxide (GO) also suffers from fabrication reproducibility, with no exact chemical formula is has been suggested that a nominal chemical formula of graphene oxide is CO1.5, however they are a number of side-chains always associated with its production, therefore it is never pure.
Because it expensive and difficult to produce high quality uniform sheets of both G and GO another approach is to use G and/or GO in composites where G/GO flakes can be used to enhance the electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties at reduced production costs. Even though G/GO is expensive to produce, only a small percentage (even as low as 1%) is required to change these properties. Therefore, this significantly reduces the cost.
This study looks at the theoretical bonding of both G and GO as they are bonded into different configurations in a number of composite materials, some of which are shown in Figure 1. From this theoretical bonding and structural information, a number of physical properties will be calculated to determine the amount of G or GO that should be mixed in with the compound to give the optimal performance of the composite material.