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Layered materials

Scaling up exfoliation

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 545–546 (2014)Cite this article

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High-shear mixing is now shown to be an effective approach for the exfoliation of large quantities of graphene and other two-dimensional materials, providing a viable route for the industrial scaling of applications based on these layered crystals.

The shear mixing of graphite starts at an initial 50 mg ml−1 of graphite flakes and involves rapid processing at 3,000 to 4,500 r.p.m. to exfoliate the layered material in either N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone or in an aqueous surfactant solution of sodium cholate, to give large-volume suspensions. A subsequent centrifugation of these suspensions contains significant quantities of high-quality graphene nanosheets, including some monolayer material. The technique remains so simple that it is even demonstrated with a kitchen blender. Remarkably, both high-volume shear mixing and centrifugation are widely used processes in the chemical industry, facilitating the path to technology transition. And with graphite prices ranging from US$800 to US$3,000 per ton, depending on the source and purity, starting material accessibility needed to capitalize on this exfoliation technique will be abundant.

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Figure 1: Shear exfoliation of graphite to graphene.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. James M. Tour is in the Department of Chemistry, Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and the Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA,

    James M. Tour

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  1. James M. Tour
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Correspondence to James M. Tour.

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Tour, J. Scaling up exfoliation. Nature Mater 13, 545–546 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3961

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