Publications

Solvent-driven electron trapping and mass transport in reduced graphites to access perfect graphene

Author(s)
Philipp Vecera, Johannes Holzwarth, Konstantin F. Edelthalhammer, Udo Mundloch, Herwig Peterlik, Frank Hauke, Andreas Hirsch
Abstract

Herein, we report on a significant discovery, namely, the quantitative discharging of reduced graphite forms, such as graphite intercalation compounds, graphenide dispersions and graphenides deposited on surfaces with the simple solvent benzonitrile. Because of its comparatively low reduction potential, benzonitrile is reduced during this process to the radical anion, which exhibits a red colour and serves as a reporter molecule for the quantitative determination of negative charges on the carbon sheets. Moreover, this discovery reveals a very fundamental physical-chemical phenomenon, namely a quantitative solvent reduction induced and electrostatically driven mass transport of K+ ions from the graphite intercalation compounds into the liquid. The simple treatment of dispersed graphenides suspended on silica substrates with benzonitrile leads to the clean conversion to graphene. This unprecedented procedure represents a rather mild, scalable and inexpensive method for graphene production surpassing previous wet-chemical approaches

Organisation(s)
Dynamics of Condensed Systems
External organisation(s)
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)
Journal
Nature Communications
Volume
7
No. of pages
7
ISSN
2041-1723
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12411
Publication date
08-2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103015 Condensed matter, 103009 Solid state physics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Physics and Astronomy, General Chemistry, General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/6a7180a7-3ea2-4d66-b128-cf9233200351