3D Continuous CVD Graphene: a New Class of Materials

Download MRS Fall 2011 Paper on 3D Continuous CVD Graphene: a New Class of Materials

Mathieu Monville¹, Karlheinz Strobl¹, Daniil Stolyarov², Elena Polyakova²
¹CVD Equipment Corporation, 1860 Smithtown Avenue, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779
²Graphene Laboratories Inc., 4603 Middle Country Road, Unit 125, Calverton, NY 11933

GRAPHENE is an IDEAL 2D MATERIAL

Record material properties:

• Electrical Conductivity
• Mobility
• Mechanical Strength

Potential applications in:

• RF Electronics, Energy Conversion and Storage, Biotechnology, NEMS, Filtration, Membranes, Chemical Sensors, Polymer Nanocomposites, etc.

How to take advantage of the exceptional 2D material properties in a 3D World?

The challenge is to create 3D macroscopic materials that preserve some of these record material properties

GRAPHENE: 2D → 3D

Traditional Solution: the chemical coupling agent route

• Already studied in the scientific community with nanocomposite structures based on nanocarbons
• Used to create 3D hybrid architectures based on chemically derived graphene materials²

Fundamental Problem: Composite networks based on graphene flakes or nanocarbon materials have limited electrical, thermal and mechanical properties because of:

• Transition problems between the basic building blocks
• Structural defects within the basic building blocks

New Solution:  Direct production of 3D continuous graphene-based structures by catalyst template CVD growth method

Creation of so-called “graphene-foam” with high surface area (850 m²/g), high porosity, mechanical interconnectivity and good electrical conductivity (10 S/cm) has been previously reported^1,3.

CONCLUSIONS

Previous pioneering work¹ inspired us to apply CVD to a range of 3D catalyst structures in order to test the manufacturability of a variety of 3D continuous graphene-based material structures and to investigate their commercial scale-up and product integration challenges.

Nickel metallic foam is an ideal catalyst material for 3D CVD graphene because it is commercially available in large volume (NiMH battery electrodes production) in different thickness, densities and pore sizes and tuning of the CVD process allows the manufacturing of graphene-like materials having 3-10 atomic carbon layers.

• Control of the porous structure of 3D graphene is primarily achieved by selecting the appropriate catalyst template among the wide range of commercially available Ni and Cu 3D material formats
• Control of the wall thickness of the 3D graphene network is achieved by selecting the CVD process conditions.

Derivative 3D CVD graphene materials can then be made through additional processing:

• Integration in polymer matrix for making conductive polymers,
• Nanometer thick addition of polymer skins for mechanical stiffness tuning
• Additional graphene surface functionalization with ALD, LPCVD, electrodeposition, chemical grafting, etc.
• Free standing, ultra-light, 3D CVD graphene-like structures with polymer skin - once the supporting catalyst material is removed, etc.

New, ultra-light, high surface area, electrically and mechanically continuously connected 3D material platform that could lead to new sensors⁴, ultra-light materials, novel composite materials¹, ultra capacitor electrodes³, etc.

REFERENCES

1. Chen Z., Ren W., Gao L., Liu B., Pei S., Cheng H-M., Nature Materials 10 (2011), 424-428.

2. Potts J., Dreyer D.R., Bielawski C.W., Ruoff R.S., Polymer 52 (2011), 5-25.

3. Cao X., Shi Y., Lu G., Huang X., Yan Q., Zhang Q., Zhang H., Small 7 (2011), 3163-3168.

4. Yavari F., Chen Z., Abhay V.T., Ren W., Cheng H-M., Koratkar N., Scientific Reports 1 (2011), Art.166.