Salt and water co-assisted exfoliation of graphite in organic solvent for efficient and large scale production of high-quality graphene

Jianhui Li; Haiting Yan; Dongfeng Dang; Wei Wei; Lingjie Meng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2018.09.094

Salt and water co-assisted exfoliation of graphite in organic solvent for efficient and large scale production of high-quality graphene

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Feb 1:535:92-99. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.09.094. Epub 2018 Sep 27.

Authors

Jianhui Li¹, Haiting Yan¹, Dongfeng Dang¹, Wei Wei¹, Lingjie Meng²

Affiliations

¹ School of Science, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, MOE Key Laboratory for Nonequilibrium Synthesis and Modulation of Condensed Matter, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
² School of Science, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, MOE Key Laboratory for Nonequilibrium Synthesis and Modulation of Condensed Matter, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China; Instrumental Analysis Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China. Electronic address: menglingjie@xjtu.edu.cn.

PMID: 30286311
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.09.094

Abstract

Graphene has attracted enormous attention due to its unique physical properties and attractive applications in many fields. However, it is an ongoing challenge to develop a facile and low-cost method for the large scale preparation of high-quality graphene (HQGr). In this work, we have developed an improved liquid-phase exfoliation method to mass produce HQGr. This method is quite simple but efficient by exfoliation of graphite in organic solvent with the co-assistance of sodium citrate and water. Remarkably, the concentration of as-exfoliated HQGr was as high as 0.71 mg/mL under optimal conditions, while the oxygen content in HQGr was only 2.39%. After annealing at 500 °C for 2 h in argon atmosphere, the mean conductivity of annealed HQGr was as high as 1.4 × 10⁴ S m^-1. Therefore, this facile method for liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite has excellent potential in the industrial-scale production of HQGr for numerous applications in energy storage, optical and electronic fields.

Keywords: Co-assisted exfoliation; High-quality graphene (HQGr); Large scale production; Liquid-phase exfoliation.