TY - JOUR T1 - CdS cubane type clusters encapsulated by rolling of single layer reduced graphene oxide sheets for enhanced mechanical energy harvesting JF - Materials Science and Engineering B-Advanced Functional Solid-State Materials Y1 - 2022 A1 - Kumar, Praveen A1 - Ram, Farsa A1 - Shanmuganathan, Kadhiravan A1 - Luwang, Meitram Niraj KW - Graphene oxide complex compound KW - Nanogate structure KW - New material KW - Novel procedure KW - Piezoelectric nanogenerator KW - SLGO AB - Composites with Single Layer Graphene Oxide (SLGO) sheets are extremely difficult to achieve, irrespective of the current advancements in graphene composites research. The difficulties in exfoliating the graphite oxide (GO) was associated with a strong interaction among the edge sides of the adjacent layers. This in-turn barricades the foreign intruders to interact with the basal plane, thereby restraining one to form composites with SLGO sheets. In this work, we had successfully exfoliated GO through a spacer [Cd(OAc)(2) + polyethylene glycol (PEG)] to result in nano-engineered CdS cubane-type clusters in rolled up SLGO to form graphene oxide complex compound (GOCC), resembling carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The CdS cubane-type clusters were found to interacting with the carbon skeleton of rolled reduced SLGO sheet through a Manogate' structures, which was supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Our theoretical study reveals that the obtained complex compound (GOCC) is thermodynamically more favourable than its ancestor materials (CdS cubane and empty CNT). Flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) fabricated from GOCC and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) resulted in output voltage (V-oc) of 4.5 V and output current of 0.4 mu A at applied force of 13 N. The nanoengineering helps to achieve superior mechanical energy harvesting performance for GOCC compared to pristine CdS, which demonstrate the potential of nanogate structures to enhance the intrinsic properties of materials. VL - 276 U3 - Foreign U4 - 4.051 ER -