Graphene is an extremely thin carbon sheet displaying unique performances in many areas. Layers of graphene stacked together form a most common form of carbon material, graphite
Graphene is the thinnest known compound and exhibits incredible properties
Properties
1 square meter weights around 0.77 milligrams
100-300 times stronger than steel
Excellent conductor of heat at room temperature
Excellent electrical conductivity
Main Production methods
However, graphene is still facing strong difficulties at the production level
Chemical vapor deposition
allows to produce very high quality graphene but involved many toxic chemicals and it is still to grow graphene layers on a large scale using this techniques. Moreover, it is extremely hard to separate graphene layers from its metallic substrate without damaging the graphene
Oxidation reduction
allows to produce graphene in a more industrializable scale but at a very limited quality. This type of graphene does exhibit performances that do not fully industrial needs and limit the performances of the applications
Exfoliation
is a major progress in the graphene production process. However, until recently, it was not possible to precisely control the production parameters and then obtain a graphene with specific properties
