| dc.description.abstract | Since its discovery in 2004, graphene has shown promise for technological advances in numerous fields such as advanced electronics, membranes, structural composites, and energy storage. Graphene’s unique physical and chemical structure that allow for it to have an extraordinary combination of mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. As the applications for graphene spread, a reliable method to produce large quantities of defect free, single layer graphene has trailed behind. Numerous top-down(mechanical cleavage and liquid phase exfoliation) and bottom-up(chemical vapor deposition) approaches have been used to produce graphene with various success rates. As with all materials, there are trade-offs between the quality and quantity of the graphene that is being produced with each method.
The goal of this research is to better understand scalable graphene production through electrochemical containment exfoliation. The produced graphene has shown large lateral size, low defects, and only a few layers thick. This production method has shown to be promising due to its potential scalability, low costs, and simplicity. Through the development of a new generation electrochemical reactor, we studied the electrical and diffusion limitations of various compacted graphite bed thicknesses. We also evaluated the rate of graphite expansion and the morphological changes to the graphite bed. The properties of the material produced through this unique method can be exploited and tailored for applications such as composites and supercapacitors. | |
