Wet Chemistry of Graphene

A variety of sophisticated approaches have been established to obtain stable dispersions of graphene. The use of graphite as starting material for the top-down preparation of graphene offers a cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly alternative to low-dimensional nanocarbon. When in van der Waals contact, graphene sheets are subjected to very efficient π-π stacking interactions, minimizing the surface energy. An alternative approach to stabilize graphene sheets in solution is ultrasonic treatment in organic solvents. The use of amphiphilic π-systems increases the driving force and renders the exfoliation process more dominant in terms of monolayer graphene. Functionalization is certainly a crucial step not only for stabilizing the graphene sheets, but also for harvesting the material's full potential by tuning electron-donor and electron acceptor systems in solution-based processes.