Synthesis/preparation and surface modification/functionalization of graphene, and concept of nanocomposites

Abstract

Recently, academic as well as industrial attention has turned to structural and electronic properties of carbon-based nanomaterials. Among the carbon nanomaterials, now graphene is the hottest topic in condensed-mater physics and material science. Graphene, a two-dimensional carbon nanomaterial was discovered in 2004 by A.K. Geim and K.S. Novoselov. Because of excellent electronic, physical, and thermal properties, non-toxicity, highly chemical and thermal tolerant, graphene has been considered as a promising candidate for a wide range of industrial applications like structural and electronic components, batteries/capacitor, adsorbents, catalyst support, thermal transport media, and even application in biotechnology. It is also a suitable material for energy technologies such as fuel cells, solar cells, hydrogen storage, batteries, and capacitors, filed effect transistor, and transparent electrodes. To synthesize graphene, several approaches have been applied and some approaches also have been utilized to produce graphene in commercial scale. Despite strong interest and rapid progress in research on graphene and graphene related materials, there is still a long way for the widespread implementation of graphene. Primary difficulty is quantity and quality imbalance, but there’s also issues with large-scale production while maintaining high quality, high yield, and controllable tuning of bandgap of graphene. This chapter deals with different methods used for graphene synthesis, advantages and disadvantages of different graphene synthesis techniques, market scenario based on commercial graphene production, and the methods used for commercial production. This chapter also includes different surface functionalization processes of graphene based on different applications.