Low-Temperature Exfoliated Graphenes: Vacuum-Promoted Exfoliation and Electrochemical Energy Storage

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 3; no. 11; pp. 3730 - 3736
• Main Authors: Lv, Wei, Tang, Dai-Ming, He, Yan-Bing, You, Cong-Hui, Shi, Zhi-Qiang, Chen, Xue-Cheng, Chen, Cheng-Meng, Hou, Peng-Xiang, Liu, Chang, Yang, Quan-Hong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 24.11.2009
• Subjects: high vacuum; surface chemistry; low temperature; electrochemical energy storage; graphene
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/nn900933u

A preheated high-temperature environment is believed to be critical for a chemical-exfoliation-based production of graphenes starting from graphite oxide, a belief that is based on not only experimental but also theoretical viewpoints. A novel exfoliation approach is reported in this study, and the exfoliation process is realized at a very low temperature, which is far below the proposed critical exfoliation temperature, by introducing a high vacuum to the exfoliation process. Owing to unique surface chemistry, low-temperature exfoliated graphenes demonstrate an excellent energy storage performance, and the electrochemical capacitance is much higher than that of the high-temperature exfoliated ones. The low-temperature exfoliation approach presents us with a possibility for a mass production of graphenes at low cost and great potentials in energy storage applications of graphene-based materials.