Ingenieurwissenschaften und zugeordnete Tätigkeiten
Filtern
Dokumenttyp
- Vortrag (6)
- Zeitschriftenartikel (5)
Sprache
- Englisch (11)
Schlagworte
- Functionalized graphene (11) (entfernen)
Organisationseinheit der BAM
Paper des Monats
- ja (1)
Eingeladener Vortrag
- nein (6)
Since its isolation, graphene has received growing attention from academia and industry due to its unique properties. However, the “what is my material” barrier hinders further commercialization. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is considered as a method of choice for the determination of the elemental and chemical composition. In this work the influence of the morphology of graphene particles on the XPS results is studied and investigated as a function of X-ray energy, using conventional XPS with Al K𝜶 radiation and hard X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HAXPES) using Cr K𝜶 radiation. Thereby, the information depth is varied between 10 and 30 nm. For this purpose, two commercial powders containing graphene nanoplatelets with lateral dimensions of either ≈100 nm or in the micrometer range are compared. These larger ones exist as stack of graphene layers which is inspected with scanning electron microscopy. Both kinds of particles are then functionalized with either oxygen or fluorine. The size of the graphene particles is found to influence the degree of functionalization. Only the combination of XPS and HAXPES allows to detect the functionalization at the outermost surface of the particles or even of the stacks and to provide new insights into the functionalization process.
International standards describing reliable protocols will facilitate the commercialization of graphene and related 2D materials. One physico-chemical key property next to flake size and thickness is the chemical composition of the material. Therefore, an ISO standard is under development with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy having a prominent role. With its information depth of around 10 nm which is the similar length scale as the thickness as of particles of 2D materials consisting of a few monolayer XPS seems to be highly suitable for this purpose. Different sample preparation methods like pressing the powders onto adhesive tapes, into recesses, or into solid pellets result in inconsistencies in the quantification. For the validation of the quantification with XPS an interlaboratory comparison was initiated under the auspice of the “Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards” (VAMAS). First results confirm that the sample preparation method (pellet vs. powder) influences the quantification results clearly.
International standards describing reliable protocols will facilitate the commercialization of graphene and related 2D materials. One physico-chemical key property next to flake size and thickness is the chemical composition of the material. Therefore, an ISO standard is under development with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy having a prominent role. With its information depth of around 10 nm which is the similar length scale as the thickness as of particles of 2D materials consisting of a few monolayer XPS seems to be highly suitable for this purpose. Different sample preparation methods like pressing the powders onto adhesive tapes, into recesses, or into solid pellets result in inconsistencies in the quantification. For the validation of the quantification with XPS an interlaboratory comparison was initiated under the auspice of the “Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards” (VAMAS). First results confirm that the sample preparation method (pellet vs. powder) influences the quantification results clearly. Considering this effect, a good agreement of the results from the different participants were observed. Similar results were observed for raw, N- and F-functionalized graphene.
Since its isolation, graphene has received growing attention from academia and industry due to its unique properties. Promising opportunities for applications are discussed in different field like electronics and optoelectronics, detection, and sensing devices, biosystems or chemical and environmental corrosion inhibition. Here, functionalization with elements like oxygen, nitrogen or fluorine can broaden the application, for example in composite materials. However, lack of generally accepted operation procedures hinders the commercialization, the so-called “what is my material” barrier. Therefore, first efforts were done to develop common, reliable, and reproducible ways to characterize the morphological and chemical properties of the industrially produced material.
In this contribution, our efforts in the development of reliable chemical characterizations protocols for functionalized graphene are presented. An ISO standard for the chemical characterization of graphene-related (GRM) is under development with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) having a prominent role. With its information depth of around 10 nm, which is the similar length scale as the thickness of particles of 2D materials consisting of a few monolayers, XPS seems to be highly suitable for the quantitative analysis of (functionalized) GRM. Thereby, different sample preparation methods like pressing the powders onto adhesive tapes, into recesses, or into solid pellets result in inconsistencies in the quantification. Furthermore, different morphologies like stacks of graphene layers (left figure) or irregular particles (right figure) lead to different analysis results for the chemical composition.
For the validation of the quantification with XPS and the further development of standards an international interlaboratory comparison was initiated under the head of the “Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards” (VAMAS). First results are reported showing the suitability of the protocols. Finally, the XPS results are compared with the elemental composition results obtained after quantification with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) as a fast analytical method which is usually combined with electron microscopy.
Since its discovery, graphene has got growing attention in the industrial and application research due to its unique properties . However, graphene has not been yet implemented into the industrial market, in particularly due to the difficulty of properly characterizing this challenging material. As most of other nanomaterials, graphene’s properties are closely linked to its chemical and structural properties, such as number of layers, flake thickness, degree of functionalisation and C/O ratio. For the commercialization, suitable procedures for the measurement and characterization of the ultrathin flakes, of lateral dimensions in the range from µm to tens of µm, are essential.Surface chemical methods, especially XPS, have an outstanding role of providing chemical information on the composition. Thereby, one well-known problem for surface analytical methods is the influence of contamination on the composition as in the case of adventitious carbon. The differentiation between carbon originated from the contamination or from the graphene sample itself is often not obvious, which can lead to altered results in the determination of the composition. To overcome this problem, Hard Energy X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (HAXPES) offers new possibilities due to its higher information depth. Therefore, XPS measurement obtained with Al Kα radiation (E = 1486. 6 eV) were compared with analyses performed with a Cr Kα (E = 5414. 8 eV) excitation on functionalized graphene samples. Differences are discussed in terms of potential carbon contamination, but also of oxygen on the composition of the samples. Measurements are performed on O-, N- and F-functionalized graphene. Different preparation procedures (powder, pellet, drop cast from liquid suspension) will be also discussed, correlation of the results with the flakes morphology as well as their validation with other independent methods are in progress.
Protein adsorption at the air–water interface is a serious problem in cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) as it restricts particle orientations in the vitrified ice-film and promotes protein denaturation. To address this issue, the preparation of a graphene-based modified support film for coverage of conventional holey carbon transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids is presented. The chemical modification of graphene sheets enables the universal covalent anchoring of unmodified proteins via inherent surface-exposed lysine or cysteine residues in a one-step reaction. Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) trough approach is applied for deposition of functionalized graphene sheets onto commercially available holey carbon TEM grids. The application of the modified TEM grids in single particle analysis (SPA) shows high protein binding to the surface of the graphene-based support film. Suitability for high resolution structure determination is confirmed by SPA of apoferritin. Prevention of protein denaturation at the air–water interface and improvement of particle orientations is shown using human 20S proteasome, demonstrating the potential of the support film for structural biology.
In order to bridge the gap between lab-scale and industrial-scale production of graphene it is necessary to develop processes, equipment and measurement procedures to control the material features. One of the crucial reasons of graphene’s limited commercialization is the lack of standard procedures to properly characterize and define the material chemical and structural properties down to the nanometer level. This leads to many issues regarding material synthesis repeatability, inappropriateness choice of measurands and measurement reproducibility which heavily affect the consistency of the material performance.
In our study, a comparative analysis is performed on two different series (G5 and G6) of industrial graphene powders, each series produced with four types of functionalization: raw graphene, oxygen-functionalized, nitrogen-functionalized and fluorine-functionalized. All the 8 sample variants were analyzed from a chemical and morphological point of view in the form of powders prepared as slightly pressed in metallic sample holders.
The results of the comparative chemical analyses XPS and EDS show a good agreement in the concentration values for all the elements present in the samples, despite the different analysis volumes addressed by the two techniques. For this reason, the samples can be considered homogeneous in both lateral and vertical direction.
A clear influence of the morphology on the composition is evident. Therefore, such correlative measurements of morphology and composition are necessary for a comprehensive characterization of industrial graphene flakes.
Before industrial grade graphene could reach comparable quality to the controlled laboratory scale material, many challenges must be overcome. In order to bridge the gap between lab-scale and industrial-scale production is necessary to develop processes, equipment and measurement procedures to control the material features. One of the most crucial reasons of graphene’s limited commercialization is the lack of standard procedures to properly characterize and define the material chemical and structural properties down to the nanometer level. This leads to many issues regarding material synthesis repeatability, inappropriateness choice of measurands and measurement reproducibility which heavily affect the consistency of the material performance. For example, among all the different industrially produced real-world graphene, it is crucial to determine how many layers of graphene build the material. Products that are built by more than 10 layers should be more correctly referred as nanosized graphite, a problem that is often regarded as the “fake graphene” issue.
In our study, a comparative analysis is performed on two different series (G5 and G6) of industrial graphene powders, each series produced with four types of functionalization: raw graphene, oxygen-functionalized, nitrogen-functionalized and fluorine-functionalized. All the 8 sample variants were analyzed from a chemical and morphological point of view in the form of powders prepared as slightly pressed in metallic sample holders.
The results of the comparative chemical analyses XPS and EDS show a good agreement in the concentration values for all the elements present in the samples, despite the different analysis volumes addressed by the two techniques. For this reason, the samples can be considered homogeneous in both lateral and vertical direction.
A clear influence of the morphology on the composition is evident. Therefore, such correlative measurements of morphology and composition are necessary for a comprehensive characterization of industrial graphene flakes. Protocols for reliable characterization of industrial graphene flakes are in progress.
While noncovalent interactions between graphene derivatives and biosystems are extensively studied, less knowledge about their covalent multivalent interactions at biointerfaces is available. Due to the affinity of boronic acids towards cis-diol bearing biosystems, graphene sheets with this functionality were synthesized and their covalent interactions with the bacteria and nematode were investigated. As expected, graphene platforms with boronic acid functionality were able to wrap bacteria and destroy it in a short time. Surprisingly, body of nematodes was ruptured and their viability decreased to 30% after 24 h incubation with the functionalized graphene sheets. Because of their antibacterial and antiparasitic activities as well as their ability for wound dressing, graphene platforms with the boronic acid functionality were further investigated for diabetic wound healing. In vivo experiments showed that graphene platforms are more efficient than the commercially available drug, phenytoin, and restore both infected and non-infected diabetic wounds in ten days. Taking advantage of their straightforward synthesis, strong interactions with different biosystems as well as their ability to heal diabetic wounds, the boronic Acid functionalized graphene sheets are promising candidates for a broad range of future biomedical applications.