Today, in the „DIY experiment” we will address the issue of flammability and smoke generation during the combustion of materials with the addition of flake graphene. As an example we tried burning a regular sheet of paper and a sheet of so-called graphene paper (in this case, it is a composite paper in which the matrix consists of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and is reinforced with fibrous mesh). You can conduct such an experiment yourself by purchasing graphene paper sheets on the G-Flake® website.
By applying a lighter flame to the edge of a paper sheet, we can observe rapid ignition and burning of the sheet within a few seconds. A thin sheet of paper ignites easily because it has a low ignition temperature. Repeating the same procedure for graphene paper (comparable thickness of the sheet and the same orientation relative to the flame as the paper sheet), one can notice that despite a much longer exposure to the flame, graphene paper does not burn. After a longer period of „ignition,” slight losses in the RGO matrix were noticed.
It can be inferred that such a light and thin material may be an attractive solution to reduce the flammability of materials. Importantly, if graphene material is added to a polymer matrix that generates large amounts of toxic fumes during combustion, smoke generation can be significantly reduced, facilitating rescue operations for firefighters.