Large-scale synthesis of fluorinated graphene by rapid thermal exfoliation of highly fluorinated graphite

Dalton Trans. 2018 Mar 26;47(13):4596-4606. doi: 10.1039/c7dt04565d.

Abstract

Weakly fluorinated graphene nanosheets were efficiently prepared via fast thermal exfoliation of highly fluorinated graphite. This scalable method consists of a fast temperature increase (around 10 °C s-1) of fluorinated HOPG performed under an argon atmosphere, without any post-treatment. The mechanism of exfoliation induced by the defluorination step, evolving volatile fluorocarbons, has been highlighted thanks to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), high temperature X-ray diffraction (HTK-XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometry (XPS) studies on temperature, and Raman and infrared spectroscopy. The advantages of the described process are its high-yield for the preparation of fluorinated graphene nanosheets, its ease of implementation and scalability. Moreover, the fluorine content drastically decreases during such a process and graphene layers are slightly functionalized, i.e. conductive contrary to the precursor.