Investigation of the usability of extreme temperature changes in pristine graphene production

Abstract

The scalable, controllable and sustainable mass production of graphene is still the subject of many studies. Various methods have been proposed and discussed for this. In this study, a low-cost new approach has been reported with purely mechanical methods, environmentally friendly, free of chemical solvents and suitable for mass production. This technique, which aims to separate the layers with the effect of the thermal stress forces created by the volumetric expansion/shrinkage nature caused by extreme temperature change, it differs from other mechanical and thermal exfoliations due to the absence of specific tools and special chemicals. With the approach based on this methodology, two different samples have been produced and their structural and morphological researches have been made. Structural analyzes have been characterized by X-ray diffraction diffractometer, Raman spectrometer, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, while morphological research has been performed using scanning electron microscope. It has been confirmed with characterization devices that the thermomechanical exfoliation method can produce pristine graphene within the limits that can be accepted as quality.