STTR Phase I: Eco-Friendly Mass Production of Highly Conductive Graphene Sheets with Controlled Structures

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop an efficient, rapid, and eco-friendly approach for mass production of highly conductive solution phase graphene with controlled structures. Most of the commercial available solution phase conductive graphene sheets are either highly defective reduced graphene oxide (r-GO) or non-defective pristine graphene sheets. They are either dispersed in special organic solvents or aqueous solutions with the help of surfactants for stabilization. Most of the production processes involve toxic chemicals or release toxic substances as byproducts, causing potential hazard to our environment. The study of novel green microwave oxidation chemistries proposed in this project will lead to rapid (tens of seconds), direct (without requirement for post reduction), and low cost fabrication of highly conductive, clean (without requirement for surfactants and stabilizers), and low oxygen containing graphene sheets with controlled lateral dimensions and molecular structures. The success of the project will leads to a series of new graphene products which are different from both rGO and pristine graphene sheets while combining many of their merits and can be used for the research society to fabricate highly conductive graphene sheets with tailored structures for best fit a broad spectrum of applications. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the great potential to enable cost effective mass production of highly conductive graphene sheets with unique molecular structures and controllable sizes. Given the known wide potential application of graphene in energy generation and storage, catalysts, electronics, coating, sensors, etc, the commercial available of these graphene sheets with well-defined structures will speed up the scientific understanding and technological developments in these broad areas. This project could also greatly benefit our society with the environment friendly and low energy consumption approach for the mass production of these materials.