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Materials science

Breakthrough for protons

Nature volume 516, pages 173–174 (2014)Cite this article

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The atomically thin material called graphene is impermeable to atoms as small as helium. The finding that protons can pass through it might enable new kinds of membrane to be developed and aid research into fuel cells. See Letter p.227

The two-dimensional material graphene is often depicted as a hexagonal mesh of carbon atoms, with plenty of space between its atoms. But in reality, the finite size of the carbon atoms leaves little room for anything to slip through. In 2008, a classic experiment1 revealed that pristine graphene is impermeable to helium and other gases at room temperature, making it the thinnest barrier known to science. The results logically extend to other two-dimensional materials, including hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and molybdenum disulphide (MoS2). By contrast, in a paper published in this issue (page 227), Hu et al.2 present the unexpected finding that graphene and hBN — but not MoS2 — are excellent conductors of protons across their two-dimensional structure.

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Figure 1: Electron density distribution in two-dimensional materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rohit N. Karnik is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307, USA.,

    Rohit N. Karnik

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  1. Rohit N. Karnik
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Correspondence to Rohit N. Karnik.

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Karnik, R. Breakthrough for protons. Nature 516, 173–174 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14074

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