Method of ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation to prepare graphene

Xiaoguang Gu; Yue Zhao; Kai Sun; Carolina L Z Vieira; Zhijuan Jia; Chi Cui; Zhenjun Wang; Annika Walsh; Shaodan Huang

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2019.104630

Method of ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation to prepare graphene

Ultrason Sonochem. 2019 Nov:58:104630. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2019.104630. Epub 2019 Jun 8.

Authors

Xiaoguang Gu¹, Yue Zhao², Kai Sun³, Carolina L Z Vieira⁴, Zhijuan Jia⁵, Chi Cui⁵, Zhenjun Wang⁶, Annika Walsh⁷, Shaodan Huang⁸

Affiliations

¹ School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China; Intelligent Manufacturing Big Data Platform (Zhengzhou) R&D Center, Zhengzhou Normal University, Zhengzhou 450044, China.
² College of Mining, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, Liaoning, China. Electronic address: sunkai_cx@lntu.edu.cn.
³ College of Innovative and Practice, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, Liaoning, China.
⁴ Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02135, USA.
⁵ School of Information Science and Technology, Zhengzhou Normal University, Zhengzhou 450044, China.
⁶ University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
⁷ The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁸ Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02135, USA. Electronic address: shhuang@hsph.harvard.edu.

PMID: 31450336
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2019.104630

Abstract

Graphene is a two-dimensional material with unique structure and excellent properties. After first being successfully prepared in 2004, it rapidly became a research hotspot in the fields of materials, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Currently, there are many methods for preparing graphene, such as ball milling method, chemical oxidation-reduction, chemical vapor deposition, and liquid-phase exfoliation. Among these methods, liquid-phase exfoliation is the most important preparation method. In this paper, ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation is systematically studied. The output power and frequency of the ultrasonic crusher used in the experiment are 100 W and 20 kHz, respectively. Results show that ultrasonic waves can affect the size and thickness distribution of graphene sheets; ultrasound-assisted deoxycholic acid sodium aqueous solution has a good exfoliation effect. In addition, the effects of the 3 liquid-phase systems on preparing graphene are studied, including organic solvent system, aqueous surfactant system, and ionic liquids system; the improvement efforts for ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation method are discussed including the exploration of new solvents and optimization of exfoliation process. The application of auxiliary agent-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation method is also discussed.

Keywords: Exfoliation; Graphene; Ultrasound.