Abstract
Developing a mass production method for graphene is essential for practical usage of this remarkable material. Direct exfoliation of graphite in a liquid is a promising approach for production of high quality graphene. However, this technique has three huge obstacles to be solved; limitation of solvent, low yield and low quality (i.e., multilayer graphene with a small size). Here, we found that soluble graphite produced by mechanochemical reaction with salts overcomes the above three drawbacks. Soluble graphite was exfoliated into monolayer graphene with more than 10% yield in five minutes of sonication. The modified graphite was easily exfoliated in a low-boiling point solvent such as acetone, alcohol and water without the aid of a surfactant. Molecular simulation revealed that the salt is adsorbed to the active carbon at the graphite edge. In the case of weak acid salts, the original bonding nature between the alkali ion and the base molecule is retained after the reaction. Thus, alkali metals are easily dissociated in a polar solvent, leading to negative charge of graphene, enabling the exfoliation of graphite in low boiling point solvents. The approach proposed here opens up a new door to practical usage of the attractive 2D material.
Highlights
Graphene has received enormous attention in the eld of microelectronics and composite materials
We present a new modi ed graphite that undergoes exfoliation in low boiling point solvents to monolayer graphene, with a total yield of more than 10%
We have found a new mechanochemical reaction for the production of high-quality soluble graphene, whereby the activated carbon radicals induced by fragmentation react with organic salts in a pathway for edge-functionalization
Summary
Graphene has received enormous attention in the eld of microelectronics and composite materials. A wide range of applications such as high-sensitivity sensors, thin lm transistors, transparent conductive lms, and anti-corrosion coatings have been proposed up to now.[1,2,3,4,5,6] Commercialization of graphene for these attractive applications highly depends on the progress of graphene production technology. Bottom-up approaches like chemical vapor deposition can fabricate largearea high-quality graphene, but the productivity is usually at the milligram-scale and it is not likely to become a mainstream mass production technique.[7] a top-down approach—i.e., exfoliation of graphite—is the only feasible method to produce graphene at the ton scale. Graphene was rst produced by mechanical cleavage using scotch tape to literally peel off layers from natural graphite.[8] Of
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