Electrothermal Transformations within Graphene-Based Aerogels through High-Temperature Flash Joule Heating

Flash Joule heating of highly porous graphene oxide (GO) aerogel monoliths to ultrahigh temperatures is exploited as a low carbon footprint technology to engineer functional aerogel materials. Aerogel Joule heating to up to 3000 K is demonstrated for the first time, with fast heating kinetics (∼300 K·min–1), enabling rapid and energy-efficient flash heating treatments. The wide applicability of ultrahigh-temperature flash Joule heating is exploited in a range of material fabrication challenges. Ultrahigh-temperature Joule heating is used for rapid graphitic annealing of hydrothermal GO aerogels at fast time scales (30–300 s) and substantially reduced energy costs. Flash aerogel heating to ultrahigh temperatures is exploited for the in situ synthesis of ultrafine nanoparticles (Pt, Cu, and MoO2) embedded within the hybrid aerogel structure. The shockwave heating approach enables high through-volume uniformity of the formed nanoparticles, while nanoparticle size can be readily tuned through controlling Joule-heating durations between 1 and 10 s. As such, the ultrahigh-temperature Joule-heating approach introduced here has important implications for a wide variety of applications for graphene-based aerogels, including 3D thermoelectric materials, extreme temperature sensors, and aerogel catalysts in flow (electro)chemistry.