The field of atomically thin 2D materials such as graphene, MoS2, hBN and MnO3­ has attracted significant interest in the past decade. The focus of research is now moving towards realising the potential of these materials in real applications, with energy storage and generation key fields. However, for these applications to be realised a reliable supply of high quality materials in an easily processable form is needed. While CVD is able to produce many of these materials over large areas, for many applications, the high processing temperatures exclude this approach. Furthermore, transfer steps add extra cost and often degrading the performance of the material. In contrast oxidation of the bulk material has shown to provide large quantities of few-layer material. However, even following reduction of the exfoliated material, there are significant structural defects that affect the performance. By sonicating these layered materials in liquids, we are able to produce few-layer flakes in large quantities, without any prior pre-treatments such as oxidation or intercalation[1,2]. We have exfoliated a range of materials in both solvents and aqueous surfactant solutions, demonstrating the versatility of the process. We have found that these flakes are defect–free, with no functional groups and a high degree of crystalline perfection. This liquid phase exfoliation technique has recently been further developed by using high shear mixing, allowing scale-up to industrial production volumes[3]. Flakes produced by these routes have perform well as electrodes in super-capacitors and batteries, printed photo-detectors[4] and hydrogen evolution catalysis. In many applications, the ability to combine the properties of different materials in a single device allows significant enhancements in performance over single component devices[5]. [1] Y. Hernandez, et al., Nat. Nanotechnol. 3 (2008) 563 [2] J.N. Coleman, et al., Science 331 (2011) 568 [3] K.R. Paton, et al., Nat. Mater. 13 (2014) 624 [4] D.J. Finn, et al., J. Mater. Chem. C. 2 (2014) 925 [5] T.M. Higgins, et al, ACS Nano 8 (2014) 9567

Liquid phase exfoliation: A versatile route to materials for energy storage and production

249th National Meeting (2015)

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