Microwave Two Seconds For High Quality Graphene

A quick pulse in the microwave is enough to turn graphene oxide into high quality graphene, researchers say.

AsianScientist (Dec. 29, 2016) – If you’re only using it to heat up leftovers, you might be underutilizing your microwave oven. According to researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), microwaves not only heat up food but can be used to produce high quality graphene. Their research has been published in Science.

Graphene comes from a base material of graphite, the cheap material in the ‘lead’ of pencils. One of the most promising ways to achieve large quantities of graphene is to exfoliate graphite into individual graphene sheets by using chemicals. However, the oxygen exposure during the process may cause some inevitable side reactions, as it can ultimately be very damaging to the individual graphene layers.

Oxygen distorts the pristine atomic structure of graphene and degrades its properties. Therefore, removing oxygen from graphene oxide to obtain high-quality graphene has been a significant challenge over the past two decades for the scientific community working on graphene.

In the present study, researchers have discovered that baking the exfoliated graphene oxide for just one to two seconds in the microwave can eliminate virtually all of the oxygen from graphene oxides.

“The partially reduced graphene oxides absorb microwave energy produced inside a microwave oven,” says Dr. Yang Jieun, the lead author of the study. “This not only efficiently eliminates oxygen functional groups from graphene oxides, but is also capable of rearranging defective graphene films.”

The microwaved graphene exhibits a substantially reduced oxygen concentration of 4 percent, much lower than existing graphene which has an oxygen content in the range of 15 to 25 percent.

“The current method for mass-producing high-quality graphene lacks reproducibility, but holds huge untapped market potential. Therefore, securing the fundamental technology for mass production of graphene is an extremely important matter in terms of commercializing future promising industries,” said study co-author Professor Shin Hyeon Suk.



The article can be found at: Voiry et al. (2016) High-Quality Graphene via Microwave Reduction of Solution-Exfoliated Graphene Oxides.

———

Source: UNIST.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Asian Scientist Magazine is an award-winning science and technology magazine that highlights R&D news stories from Asia to a global audience. The magazine is published by Singapore-headquartered Wildtype Media Group.

Related Stories from Asian Scientist