Synthesis of graphene articles within Nature Chemistry

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  • Article |

    Aggregation usually prevents dissolution of graphene in water. Now, hydroxide ion adsorption has been shown to allow the stabilization of true single-layer graphene in water — with no surfactant required — so long as the liquid is degassed beforehand. The resulting aqueous dispersions can contain high concentrations of exfoliated graphene that are stable for several months.

    • George Bepete
    • , Eric Anglaret
    •  & Carlos Drummond

  • News & Views |

    The calcination of metal–organic framework (MOF) precursors is promising for the preparation of nanoscale carbon materials, but the resulting morphologies have remained limited. Now, controlling the growth of precursor MOFs has enabled 1D carbon nanorods to be fabricated — these can then be readily unravelled into 2D graphene nanoribbons.

    • Jing Tang
    •  & Yusuke Yamauchi

  • Article |

    Graphene possesses numerous interesting properties yet the preparation of pristine sheets has remained challenging, hindering practical applications. Now, a rapid, highly efficient step has been devised that uses microwave irradiation in oligomeric ionic liquids to exfoliate graphite into pristine ‘single layer’ sheets (<1 nm thick). A concentrated dispersion of the resulting material behaves as a physical gel.

    • Michio Matsumoto
    • , Yusuke Saito
    •  & Takuzo Aida

  • Article |

    Intercalation in graphite is generally driven by partial oxidation or reduction of the graphene sheets. Now, it has been shown that graphite microcrystals can be intercalated by Brønsted acids by heating a liquid suspension to dryness. The intercalated acid molecules interact weakly with the carbon sheets but assist in their exfoliation to single- and few-layer graphene.

    • Nina I. Kovtyukhova
    • , Yuanxi Wang
    •  & Thomas E. Mallouk

  • News & Views |

    The organic synthesis of graphene nanostructures requires exceptionally efficient chemistry and is made more challenging by difficulties in characterization and processing. Now, solution-dispersible graphene nanoribbons have been synthesized on the gram scale.

    • C. Scott Hartley

  • Article |

    Graphene oxide sheets hold promise for a variety of applications but are disordered and inhomogeneous on synthesis. Although processes to resolve this exist they typically remove oxygen groups, affecting the sheets’ properties. Now, a scalable, mild thermal annealing procedure has been devised that enhances the optical and electronic properties of graphene oxide sheets through phase transformation, while preserving their oxygen functionality.

    • Priyank V. Kumar
    • , Neelkanth M. Bardhan
    •  & Jeffrey C. Grossman

  • Article |

    Liquid-phase-processable graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) over 200 nm long and with well-defined structures have now been synthesized by a bottom-up method, and are found to have a large optical bandgap of 1.88 eV. Scanning probe microscopy revealed highly ordered self-assembled monolayers of the GNRs, and the high intrinsic charge-carrier mobility of individual ribbons was characterized by terahertz spectroscopy.

    • Akimitsu Narita
    • , Xinliang Feng
    •  & Klaus Müllen

  • News & Views |

    A nanographene compound incorporating five- and seven-membered rings is found to have a highly distorted non-planar structure and serves as a model system for studying the effect of defects in graphene sheets.

    • Benjamin T. King

  • News & Views |

    Rational synthesis of large polycyclic molecules is on its way. A bottom-up strategy for molecular assembly to tailor-make new molecules has been applied to fabricate nanographenes.

    • José A. Martin-Gago

  • Article |

    Large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or nanographenes have huge potential for organic electronics applications, but it is challenging to synthesize them in a controlled way. Now, a surface chemical route has been used to produce tailored nanographenes with atomically precise control over the final structure.

    • Matthias Treier
    • , Carlo Antonio Pignedoli
    •  & Roman Fasel

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