Fractionation of graphene oxides by size-selective adhesion with spherical particles

• Published in: Macromolecular research Vol. 24; no. 12; pp. 1098 - 1104
• Main Authors: Kim, Sinwoo, Lee, Jonghwi, Lee, Sang-Soo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Polymer Society of Korea 01.12.2016; Springer Nature B.V; 한국고분자학회
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Commercialization; Complex Fluids and Microfluidics; Deformation effects; Fractionation; Graphene; Nanochemistry; Nanomaterials; Nanotechnology; Physical Chemistry; Polymer Sciences; Scale (corrosion); Selective adsorption; Soft and Granular Matter; 고분자공학; large-area grapheme; fractionation; graphene oxide; electrostatic interaction; sphere-plate adhesion
• ISSN: 1598-5032; 2092-7673
• DOI: 10.1007/s13233-016-4146-x

Preparation of graphene has suffered from poor controllability of its lateral dimensions and the lack of sufficient fractionation technologies-the main barriers to its large-scale commercialization. This situation requires the development of an effective size fractionation strategy. Herein, the size-selective adsorption of graphene oxide (GO) onto positively charged spheres was developed as a novel size fractionation method. A critical lateral size of GO existed, above which physical adsorption was not stable, possibly because of the mechanical deformation involved. This scalable fractionation process easily produces well-dispersed GO sheets of relatively large lateral sizes, apart from the relatively small-sized GO sheets that are stably anchored onto the spherical particles. Moreover, this process is energy efficient and does not require any special equipment. This fractionation principle, size-selective adsorption, can be generalized to other various 2D nanomaterials.