An ecologically friendly process for graphene exfoliation based on the "hydrodynamic cavitation on a chip" concept

Tremendous research efforts have recently focused on the synthesis of graphene from graphitic materials, while environmental issues, scalability, and cost are some of the major challenges to be surmounted. Liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) of graphene is one of the principal methods for this synthesis....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:RSC advances 2021-05, Vol.11 (29), p.17965-17975
Main Authors: Jafarpour, Mohammad, Aghdam, Araz Sheibani, Gevari, Moein Talebian, Ko ar, Ali, Bayaz t, Mustafa Kemal, Ghorbani, Morteza
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic force microscopy
Cavitation
Chemistry
Exfoliation
Graphene
Graphite
Liquid phases
Microreactors
Microscopy
Photon correlation spectroscopy
Raman spectroscopy
Synthesis
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Summary:Tremendous research efforts have recently focused on the synthesis of graphene from graphitic materials, while environmental issues, scalability, and cost are some of the major challenges to be surmounted. Liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) of graphene is one of the principal methods for this synthesis. Nevertheless, sufficient information about the mechanisms of exfoliation has yet to emerge. Here, a microreactor based on the hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) on a chip concept is introduced to exfoliate graphite in a totally green process which involves only natural graphite flakes and water. HC-treated graphitic materials were characterized by UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopy, DLS (Dynamic Light Scattering), AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy), and SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) analyses. The present sustainable reactor system was found to exfoliate thick and large graphite particles to nano-sized sheets (∼1.2 nm) with a lateral size of ∼500 nm to 5 μm. LPE of graphene with a hydrodynamic cavitation microreactor is a totally green process which involves only natural graphite flakes and water.
ISSN:2046-2069
2046-2069
DOI:10.1039/d1ra03352b