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Over the last couple of years,the supplies of graphene for sale needed to be topped regularly. Thankfully, this can be achieved quite easily due to severalapproaches to graphene production. In this article some of those will be briefly presented.
Graphene, due to its two-dimensional structure, cannot be produced via chemical fusion, because this process causes growth in the third dimension as well. Luckily, there are some other ways of graphene production, but in any case, the created film must be placed on some sort of substrate to retain its desired two-dimensional architecture.
Exfoliation
The method of exfoliation is the procedure which was used by professors Glem and Novoselovduring their discovery of graphene. In principle it is a separation of sheets of graphite with the goal of extracting a single layer. This goal can be achieved by multiple means.
One of those is the adhesive tape, which was used by the discoverers. Usually it takes several phases to achieve a single layer of material.
Another method of exfoliation lies in using a razor-sharp diamond wedge to cleave a thin layer of material. In this case, highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) is used as a source material.
Some other methods of exfoliation include graphite oxide reduction, which was used during the original discovery in 1962, shearing or sonication.
Nanotube Slicing
An interesting method of graphene production lies in slicing a carbon nanotube. When the nanotube is cut open, it creates a perfect layer of graphene. As the production of nanotubes is considerably easier than a direct graphene manufacturing, this method is gaining in popularity.And it is interesting even more, because both graphene and carbon nanotubes (and fullerenes in general) are similar materials in so many ways. More about nanotube slicing can be found in this article.
Graphene for sale – Usage of Laser, Microwave and Vegetable Oil?
In 2014 the new, laser-based technique of graphene production was invented. Laser production allows roll-to-roll manufacturing and perhaps evenushers a way for graphene to be applied in electronics and storage devices. When a layer of graphite oxide is spread on a DVD and the DVD is then burned in the writer, the process creates a thin layer of graphene with high electrical conductivity and surface resistance.
In 2012 a scalable approach of one-step microwave-assisted graphene synthesis was reported. The microwave heating effectively shortened the time required for the reaction from days to mere seconds.
Another interesting method used for graphene synthesisuses heated vegetable oil. Researchers tried heating soybean oil in a furnace for approximately half an hour. This heat caused decomposition of the oil into carbon which when deposited on nickel foil formed a thin layer of graphene.
Even the Smallest Can Help
A method employing a bacteria Shewanellaoneidensispresents another efficient way of graphene production from graphene oxide.This means that even the tiniestcreatures on earth can help us with graphene synthesis, which is quite a remarkable fact.
That was the list of the most common and some less common ways of graphene production. While the research of graphene has gone a long way, the scientists are still at the beginning of a journey, that could potentially change our world in the years to come. Graphene is the futureand as such, it deserves all the publicity and scientific interest it can get. If you are still interested in delving deeper into the various graphene creation processes, feel free to click on this link
