High yield synthesis of single-layer graphene microsheets with dimensional control

graphene microsheets with dimensional control” Carbon 68 (2013) 167-174 DOI 1 High yield synthesis of single-layer graphene microsheets with dimensional control Zhongxin Chen, Ting Huang, Bo Cheng Jin, Jiantong Hu, Hongbin Lu, Steven Nutt 1. State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, and Department of Macromolecular Science, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China 2. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0241, United States Abstract: Future composite applications will require dimensional control of graphene microsheets (GMs) to optimize structure and performance. However, realizing this goal in a high yield, costeffective manner is presently a major challenge. We here demonstrate a simple approach to prepare single-layer GMs with a yield of >90% by one-step hydrothermal treatment of graphene oxide sheets. The addition of poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) is critical for producing single-layer GMs with specific sheet sizes and does not significantly affect the hydrothermal cutting of GMs. Using hydrothermal treatment under different conditions, the lateral dimensions of the single-layer GMs can be tuned to yield specific surface areas over a range of ∼3.5 orders of magnitude, from 30 to 9 × 10 μm.