The degree of graphite exfoliation and edge-carboxylated layers can be controlled and balanced to design lightweight materials characterized by both low electrical percolation thresholds (EPT) and improved mechanical properties. So far, this challenging task has been undoubtedly very hard to achieve. The results presented in this paper highlight the effect of exfoliation degree and the role of edge-carboxylated graphite layers to give self-assembled structures embedded in the polymeric matrix. Graphene layers inside the matrix may serve as building blocks of complex systems that could outperform the host matrix. Improvements in electrical percolation and mechanical performance have been obtained by a synergic effect due to finely balancing the degree of exfoliation and the chemistry of graphene edges which favors the interfacial interaction between polymer and carbon layers. In particular, for epoxy-based resins including two partially exfoliated graphite samples, differing essentially in the content of carboxylated groups, the percolation threshold reduces from 3 wt% down to 0.3 wt%, as the carboxylated group content increases up to 10 wt%. Edge-carboxylated nanosheets also increase the nanofiller/epoxy matrix interaction, determining a relevant reinforcement in the elastic modulu

Chem. reduced graphite oxide with strongly improved shape anisotropy was prepd. by Staudenmaier oxidn. of high surface area graphite, followed by hydrazine monohydrate redn. Selection of the starting graphite was effected on the basis of the highest shape anisotropy of the crystallites. The overall oxidn.-​redn. procedure preserves the in-​plane order of graphite and dramatically increases the out-​of-​plane disorder, which becomes similar to that one of carbon black. In particular, the overall procedure led to aggregates of few piled structural layers (D⊥ ≈ 2 nm) with increased periodicity perpendicular to the layers (from 0.339 nm up to 0.362 nm) and with high shape (D‖/D⊥ ≈ 13) and strain (ε⊥/ε‖ ≈ 15) anisotropy

In the physics of flavor mixing, the flavor states are given by superpositions of mass eigenstates. By using the occupation number to define a multiqubit space, the flavor states can be interpreted as multipartite mode-entangled states. By exploiting a suitable global measure of entanglement, based on the entropies related to all possible bipartitions of the system, we analyze the correlation properties of such states in the instances of three- and four-flavor mixing. Depending on the mixing parameters, and, in particular, on the values taken by the free phases, responsible for the CP-violation, entanglement concentrates in preferred bipartitions. We quantify in detail the amount and the distribution of entanglement in the physically relevant cases of flavor mixing in quark and neutrino systems. By using the wave packet description for localized particles, we use the global measure of entanglement, suitably adapted for the instance of multipartite mixed states, to analyze the decoherence induced by the free evolution dynamics on the quantum correlations of stationary neutrino beams. We define a decoherence length as the distance associated with the vanishing of the coherent interference effects among massive neutrino states. We investigate the role of the CP-violating phase in the decoherence process.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

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Here, we show that graphite-based catalysts, mainly graphite oxide (GO) and exfoliated GO, are effective recyclable catalysts for a relevant stereoselective Mukaiyama− Michael addition, outperforming currently available catalysts. Moreover, the graphite-based catalysts described here invert the diastereoselectivity relative to that observed with known catalysts, with the unprecedented large prevalence of the anti diastereoisomer. This inverted diastereoselectivity is increased when the catalyst concentration is reduced and after catalyst recycling. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the selectivity is determined by two types of supramolecular interactions operating between the catalyst and the substrates at the diastereoselectivity-determining transition state, specifically, the π-stacking of β-nitrostyrene with graphite and the van der Waals interaction between the SiMe 3 group of the silyl ether and the graphite.