Graphene Based Materials and their Potential for Applications

Thermal chemical vapor deposition was used to grow graphene on copper substrates [1] and isotopic labeling (13C vs 12C [2]) was used to study how graphene grows on Cu [3]. Graphene holds potential as a transparent electrically conductive thin film [4a, b, c] and for electrical energy storage (e.g.,,graphene-based ultracapacitors [5]). Our top-down approaches [6,7] were the first to target obtaining individual layers of graphite obtained by micromechanical exfoliation. In another research path, graphite is converted to graphite oxide (GO) to generate aqueous colloidal suspensions containing platelets of ‘graphene oxide’ that have been used in a variety of ways, such as for making composites with polymers [8] and silica [9], and to form ‘paper-like’ materials [10]; time permitting, I will revisit such pioneering contributions that depend on preparing chemically modified graphenes as colloids [11].