When speaking about graphene, we need to first discuss the natural mineral graphite that is commonly present in our every day life.
As an allotrope of carbon, graphite is a layered product, and the carbon atoms inside graphite are organized layer by layer. Carbon atoms in the very same layer “hold hands” and are very closely attached, however the mix of carbon atoms between different layers is loose, like a stack of playing cards. With a gentle press, the cards will certainly move apart.
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From the point of view of chemical structure, graphite is a transitional crystal in between atomic crystals, steel crystals and molecular crystals. In the crystal, carbon atoms in the exact same layer type covalent bonds with sp2 hybridization, each carbon atom is attached to 3 other carbon atoms, and six carbon atoms form a normal hexagonal ring on the exact same airplane, stretching to develop a sheet structure.
If graphite is a pile of playing cards, after that graphene is one of the cards in this stack of playing cards. Graphene is a two-dimensional material composed of a solitary layer of carbon atoms. Piling graphene layer by layer is graphite. A 1 mm thick graphite includes about 3 million layers of graphene.
Although graphene exists in nature, it is challenging to peel a solitary layer structure.
More than twenty years earlier, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, scientists at the College of Manchester in the UK, thought that there have to be a means to get a single layer of graphite.
Just how can a solitary layer of graphite be peeled off? Researchers took a very “simple and unrefined” method – sticking it with tape.
“Similar to when we compose a typo on paper, we will stick the typo with tape.” Based on this, researchers strongly associate that if tape can stay with the surface area of paper, can it also stay with layers of graphite?
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In the experiment, researchers stuck both sides of pyrolytic graphite flakes to an unique tape, and detached the tape, the graphite sheet was divided into 2. Although the thickness of graphite right now is still much from that of a single layer of graphite, researchers have actually validated the feasibility of this technique – each time the tape is made use of, the graphite ends up being thinner. By demanding using this “mechanical peeling approach” to duplicate the operation, they finally obtained a slim sheet containing only one layer of carbon atoms, which is graphene.
Nonetheless, this technique of consistently exfoliating graphite sheets with tape to get graphene has low production efficiency and can only be used to prepare micron-thick graphene, and can not be mass-produced industrially.
Later, with the improvement of clinical and technological degrees, the preparation technique of graphene has additionally made great development. Today, in addition to this typical physical and mechanical exfoliation technique, there are additionally numerous approaches for preparing graphene, such as redox technique, solvent exfoliation technique, chemical vapor deposition, etc
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