Speaker
Description
Graphene oxide (GO)-based coatings offer a versatile and sustainable strategy for enhancing the functional properties of polymer substrates for packaging and protective applications. Their layered structure, high aspect ratio, and self-assembly ability enable the formation of thin and flexible coatings with excellent barrier properties and multifunctionality. This work explores two complementary approaches to GO-derived coatings. First, large-area GO and partially reduced GO (rGO) films were deposited onto polylactic acid (PLA) substrates by scalable rod coating, using ascorbic acid (AA) as a green reducing agent. Controlled incorporation of AA enabled room-temperature in situ reduction, allowing the degree of reduction, defect density, and coating morphology to be tuned through the AA/GO ratio. The resulting coatings achieved oxygen transmission rate (OTR) reductions above 95% under moderate humidity and retained high barrier efficiency after prolonged exposure to high relative humidity. Despite the intrinsic difficulty of improving the water vapour barrier of PLA, selected rGO coatings also significantly reduced water vapour transmission rate (WVTR), demonstrating promising moisture barrier performance. The second approach involved GO/inorganic nanofillers hybrid coatings on flexible polyethylene substrates. GO promoted highly tortuous diffusion pathways, while inorganic nanofillers contributed to the formation of dense nanostructured layers, resulting in synergistic barrier enhancement and oxygen permeability reductions of up to ~88%. These results highlight GO-based coatings as promising sustainable platforms for high-performance oxygen and moisture barriers in next-generation eco-friendly packaging and protective technologies.
| Conference Topics | Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology |
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