Direct chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of graphene on dielectric/insulating materials promises transfer-free applications of graphene. However, growing graphene on non-catalytic substrates faces significant challenges, particularly due to its limited growth rate, restricting large-scale production and potential applications. Here, we develop graphene-skinned glass fiber fabric (GGFF) by growing graphene CVD on commercial glass fiber fabric (GFF). This study utilizes propane as a carbon source to prepare GGFF rapidly. The active carbon source (C₂H) derived from propane plays a significant role in facilitating the rapid growth of graphene films. It accelerated growth rates (~ 50 times faster), and reduced growth temperature (~ 100 °C lower) compared to the conventional carbon source methane. Additionally, propane consistently maintains a higher graphene growth rate than methane at equivalent growth temperatures. The lightweight flexibility, excellent thermal radiation properties, and energy efficiency of GGFF make it an outstanding material for infrared radiation drying.

Direct growth of graphene on dielectric or insulating materials via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) offers a novel, transfer-free approach for various applications. However, challenges remain in growing graphene on non-catalytic substrates. In particular, the low growth rate of graphene remains a significant barrier to its large-scale production. In this study, propane (C₃H₈) was used as the carbon source to prepare graphene on commercial alumina fiber fabric (AFF) via CVD, resulting in the synthesis of a novel material: graphene-skinned alumina fiber fabric (GAFF). Through comparative analysis of the graphene growth behaviors using C₃H₈ and traditional carbon sources (CH₄ and C₂H₄) on AFF, the growth mechanism of C₃H₈ was elucidated. The pyrolysis of C₃H₈ generates the unique carbon species C₃H, which exhibits distinct advantages in terms of migration, nucleation, and growth on AFF. Graphene nucleation density using C₃H₈ was found to be 160 times higher than that of CH₄ and 50 times higher than C₂H₄. The resulting GAFF exhibits a wide tunable electrical conductivity range (1 to 7000 Ω sq^-1), high tensile strength (>170 MPa), lightweight properties, flexibility, and a hierarchical macrostructure. These characteristics make GAFF a promising candidate for various applications, including electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding.

With the continuous advancements in electronics towards downsizing and integration, efficient thermal dissipation from chips has emerged as a critical factor affecting their lifespan and operational efficiency. The fan-less chip cooling system has two critical interfaces for thermal transport, which are the contact interface between the base and the chip dominated by thermal conduction, and the surface of the fins dominated by thermal radiation. The different thermal transfer modes of these two critical interfaces pose different requirements for thermal management materials. In the study, a novel approach was proposed by developing graphene thermal transport functional material whose morphology could be intentionally designed via reformed plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) methods to meet the diverse requirements of heat transfer properties. Specifically, graphene with multilevel branching structure of vertical graphene (BVG) was fabricated through the hydrogen-assisted PECVD (H₂-PECVD) strategy, which contributed a high emissivity of ~ 0.98. BVG was deposited on the fins’ surface and functioned as the radiation enhanced layer to facilitate the rapid radiation of heat from the heat sinks into the surrounding air. Meanwhile, the well-oriented vertical graphene (OVG) was successfully prepared through the vertical electric field-assisted PECVD process (EF-PECVD), which showed a high directional thermal conductivity of ~ 53.5 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹. OVG was deposited on the contact interface and functioned as the thermal conduction enhanced layer, allowing for the quick transmission of heat from the chip to the heat sink. Utilizing this design concept, the two critical interfaces in the chip cooling system can be jointly enhanced, resulting in a remarkable cooling efficiency enhancement of ~ 30.7%, demonstrating that this novel material possessed enormous potential for enhancing the performance of cooling systems. Therefore, this research not only provided new design concepts for the cooling system of electronic devices but also opened up new avenues for the application of graphene materials in thermal management.