MIT's effort on nanoporous graphene for Water desalination was highlighted in DOE

Source: http://pubs.acs.org  (for original photo, go to the research paper)

Department of Energy, USA highlighted effort on Water Desalination across Nanoporous Graphene of by David Cohen-Tanugi and Jeffrey C. Grossman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We earlier reported and reviewed this research paper in June of 2012 after recognize its worthiness. DOE pointed out its potentiality to be used in desalination of water especially where water is inadequate.  We wish all the best on future of this research which is lead by Jeffrey C. Grossman with his 12 member team including 6 post doctorals. 

Two articles about Graphene were among most viewed in Chemistry on Sciencedirect

Recent advances in graphene based polymer composites which was authored by Tapas Kuilla et al (a team of Republic of Korea and USA) and Graphene-based polymer nanocomposites which was published by Jeffrey R. Potts et al (a team based on USA) were among top 25 hot article in between Jan-March 2012 in Chemistry category of Sciencedirect. Both of articles are reviews which covers extensive areas of graphene which can be access and purchased via following links

Recent advances in graphene based polymer composites

Graphene-based polymer nanocomposites

Graphene may revolutionize touch-screen displays, solar panels and LED lighting.

We all know touch screens are smart enough to sense a very soft finger movement and has increased user friendliness of mobile devices and even desktops. Anyway it is subjected to cracks while using and worst it can be broken when it is fallen down. As answer to this question, researchers at Rice University discuss about ability of graphene to lead touch screens of mobile phones and tablets Cheaper, no more cracked screens, and being able to make thinner devices. 

Graphene can be used as flexible and stretchable transparent electrodes in the future

 Once it was mentioned by BBC and miracle material. See what researchers imagine of capabilities of Graphene, due to high ratio of surface area/weight, strength, conductivity and many flexible features. 

Graphene as supportive structure for CuPt - Ionic liquid - an electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation

a DMFC (source: wikipidea)

In order to fulfill the requirement of firm and effective renewable energy sources, direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is one of fuel cell category which is being developed by industry and academia continuously. Yingju Liu and team of Institute of Biomaterials, College of Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China has developed an essential electro catalyst for methanol oxidation with using large surface area per unit mass of graphene as advantage to disperse catalytically active CuPt assisted with an ionic liquid. Here they have synthesized graphene in their own lab by electrochemical oxidation of ultra-pure graphite and this is worthy to read your and add knowledge on using graphene as a catalyst synthesizer. 

View full article onsciencedirect

A review on available methods & patents of synthesizing graphene in mass production

 Source Nanowerk : for full size image

This vital review on commercially scale-up methods of Graphene has been published on NanoWerk which you must read before step into any synthesis method of it in commercial interest. Making graphene becomes easy and efficient day by day with numerous patents and research papers blooming up every part of the academia and industry.

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Fast, efficient and large scaple production for few layer graphen

Graphene were initially synthesizing using time consuming and inefficient methods, however fast and efficient methods are coming to surface gradually. Wenbo Lu et al team developed a methods to make graphene in seconds using chlorosulfonic acid and H2O2 as exfoliating agents 

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Graphene layers to replace conventional reverse osmosis membranes

The single layer graphene is being tested for each and every field!

David Cohen-Tanugi  et al of Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been tested the potential of using nano-size pores (holes) to filter out NaCl from sea water, which is conducted using many conventional reverse osmosis membranes. Their analysis on pore size, chemical functionalization, and applied pressure proved that water permeability and quality of out put of this material is several orders of magnitude higher than conventional reverse osmosis membranes

Read the full article on: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl3012853

A study on strain-induced pseudomagnetic fields of Graphene

Researches taking control of Graphene, now they are trying to play with it as it is a drum! :-)

Nikolai N. Klimov et al scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland found a fascinating finding which allow them to dig a new path for graphene to serve in new electronic devices. They successfully analysis how strain effects on its electromagnetic properties which open a door for lot of potentials in its uses.

Read the full text on Scinece: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6088/1557

Extraordinary fast synthesis method of graphene – Microwave based - nitronium ions enabled

Currently researchers are using Hummers method[1] or improved graphene oxide[2] synthesis routing to preparation of graphene oxide. But unfortunately these conventional methods is consisted with disadvantages of slash sheets into small pieces and/or occurrence of nanometer-sized holes in the basal plane. As we experience these conventional methods are time consuming too.

Chiu P. L et al recently (March 2, 2012) reported an extraordinary fast and scalable approach to avoid above problems.  KMnO4 has intentionally removed from the process, and microwave heating has been utilized to combine its unique properties with aromatic oxidation by nitronium ions.

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Ref:

1.             Hummers, W.S. and R.E. Offeman, Preparation of Graphitic Oxide. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1958. 80(6): p. 1339-1339.

2.             Marcano, D.C., et al., Improved Synthesis of Graphene Oxide. Acs Nano. 4(8): p. 4806-4814.

interfacial adhesive energy of the synthesized graphene revealed and preparation of it made easy

Groundbreaking research by Prof. Taek soo Kim and Prof. Byung Jin Cho's research teams have measured interfacial adhesive energy of the synthesized graphene and developed method to separate synthesized graphene from the metal surface which used to making it. Earlier methods used to melt away used metal platform, with cost of material and environmental damages.

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