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High-performance graphene-based carbon fibres prepared at room temperature via domain folding

Nature Materials volume 25, pages 191–198 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

The assembly of strong graphene into high-performance macroscopic materials has attracted great interest and sustained attention. Thermal treatment has proven effective in improving the performance by restoring pristine graphene lattice from defective graphene oxide. However, the mechanical performance of graphene fibres remains inferior to that of single-layer pristine graphene, primarily due to assembly-induced defects such as microvoids that form during the folding process of two-dimensional sheets to fibre structures. Here we report the room-temperature fabrication of ultrastrong and stiff graphene fibres, which exhibit an average tensile strength of 5.19 GPa and Young’s modulus of 529 GPa. We propose a domain-folding strategy to construct highly folded yet densely packed nanotexture, resulting in a tenfold reduction in microvoid volume. The stress distribution within the fibres is homogenized, leading to enhanced mechanical properties. These findings advance the fabrication of carbon fibres and other macroscopic materials assembled from two-dimensional nanosheets, enabling high material quality with reduced energy consumption.

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Fig. 1: Contrast of two paths towards CFs.
Fig. 2: Preparation of df-GF.
Fig. 3: Characterization of GF structure and relationship with strength.
Fig. 4: Structural evolution and property relationships of GF.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available in the Article and the Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff members at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for assistance in WAXS and SAXS characterizations, J. Guo in the Centre of Cryo-Electron Microscopy (CCEM), Zhejiang University, for his technical assistance on 3D construction of GF by SEM-FIB tomography, and Z. Lin and W. Ma in the Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, for their help on the measurement of thermal conductivity. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52090031, 52090030, 52403051 and 52272046) (C.G., P.L. and Y.L.), Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LQN25E030008 and LR23E020003) (P.L. and Y.L.), National Key Research and Development Program of China grants (2022YFA1205300 and 2022YFA1205301) (Zhen Xu), ‘Pioneer’ and ‘Leading Goose’ R&D Program of Zhejiang grant (2023C01190) (Zhen Xu), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities grant (226-2024-00074) (Zhen Xu), Shanxi-Zheda Institute of New Materials and Chemical Engineering (2022SZ-TD011 and 2022SZ-TD012) (C.G. and Zhen Xu) and the International Research Centre for X polymers.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Peng Li, Ziqiu Wang, Gangfeng Cai.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials and Technologies, International Research Center for X Polymers, Research Center for Advanced Fibers, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Peng Li, Ziqiu Wang, Gangfeng Cai, Zihao Deng, Bo Wang, Zheng Li, Xin Ming, Weiwei Gao, Zhen Xu, Yingjun Liu & Chao Gao

  2. Applied Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Engineering Mechanics and Centre for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yingjie Zhao & Zhiping Xu

Authors
  1. Peng Li
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Contributions

P.L., Zhen Xu and C.G. contributed to the initiating idea. Z.W. and P.L. performed the experiments. Z.W. and G.C. contributed to the preparation of fibres and mechanical tests. Y.Z. and Zhiping Xu contributed to the theoretical analysis of the activation energy of chemical reduction and stress distribution of fibres. Z.L. contributed to the theoretical analysis of interaction of graphene. Z.D., X.M. and B.W. helped to prepare the fibres. Y.L. and W.G. participated in the discussion of strengthening strategy. P.L., Z.W., Zhen Xu and C.G. analysed all the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhen Xu, Zhiping Xu, Yingjun Liu or Chao Gao.

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Nature Materials thanks Kelvin Fu and the other, anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Figs. 1–40, Tables 1–9, Captions to Supplementary Videos, Text and References.

Supplementary Video 1 (download MP4 )

MD simulation of domain folding.

Supplementary Video 2 (download MP4 )

MD simulation of free folding.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1 (download XLSX )

Room-temperature graphene assembly path.

Source Data Fig. 2 (download XLSX )

Domain folding of graphene sheets.

Source Data Fig. 3 (download XLSX )

Relation of domain folding and mechanical properties.

Source Data Fig. 4 (download XLSX )

Strengthening mechanism.

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Li, P., Wang, Z., Cai, G. et al. High-performance graphene-based carbon fibres prepared at room temperature via domain folding. Nat. Mater. 25, 191–198 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02384-7

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