Preparation of well‐dispersed reduced graphene oxide and its mechanical reinforcement in polyvinyl alcohol fibre

The current work reports the preparation and characterization of polyvinyl alcohol ( PVA ) composite fibres reinforced with graphene reduced from graphene oxide ( GO ) by using oligomeric proanthocyanidin ( OPC ) as a reductant. After reduction, most of the oxygen‐containing groups were removed from the GO and reduced graphene oxide ( rGO ) was prepared. As a result of combined OPC as a dispersant, rGO could be well dispersed in a dimethyl sulfoxide/ H 2 O mixed solvent and in PVA matrix, and the PVA / rGO dispersion was wet spun followed by hot drawing to prepare continuous PVA / rGO composite fibres. The PVA / rGO composite fibres exhibited a significant enhancement of mechanical properties at low rGO loadings; in particular the tensile strength and Young's modulus of the 2.0 wt% rGO and PVA composite fibre increased to 244% and 294% respectively relative to neat PVA fibre. Moreover, the storage modulus (−10 °C) and T g increased to 300% and 7.2 °C, respectively.