Curcumin-assisted ultrasound exfoliation of graphite to graphene in ethanol

Rahul Navik; Yanzhe Gai; Wucong Wang; Yaping Zhao

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2018.05.010

Curcumin-assisted ultrasound exfoliation of graphite to graphene in ethanol

Ultrason Sonochem. 2018 Nov:48:96-102. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2018.05.010. Epub 2018 May 22.

Authors

Rahul Navik¹, Yanzhe Gai¹, Wucong Wang¹, Yaping Zhao²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200240, PR China.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200240, PR China. Electronic address: ypzhao@sjtu.edu.cn.

PMID: 30080591
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2018.05.010

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrated a simple and cost-effective method to produce graphene from graphite in ethanol using ultrasound assisted with curcumin. The influence of curcumin concentration, starting graphite amount, sonication power, and sonication time on the graphene concentration was studied schematically. The π-π interaction between curcumin and graphene, being confirmed by FTIR spectrum, facilitate the exfoliation of the graphite into graphene. The concentration of the graphene in the ethanol reached up to 1.44 mg mL^-1 and the exfoliated suspension was relatively stable. The content of monolayer, bilayer, and multilayer in the exfoliated graphene suspension were 21%, 37%, and 42%, respectively. The as-prepared graphene sheets were free-defect. This novel approach may not only enable to exfoliate the graphite into graphene but also to make the graphene-curcumin hybrid which might find applications in pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: Curcumin; Graphene; Liquid phase exfoliation; π-π interaction.