We report the use of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for the bulk production (grams per day) of long, thin, and highly crystalline graphene ribbons (<20-30 microm in length) exhibiting widths of 20-300 nm and small thicknesses (2-40 layers). These layers usually exhibit perfect ABAB... stacking as in graphite crystals. The structure of the ribbons has been carefully characterized by several techniques and the electronic transport and gas adsorption properties have been measured. With this material available to researchers, it should be possible to develop new applications and physicochemical phenomena associated with layered graphene.

The interaction of water with hydrophobic surfaces is quite important in a variety of chemical and biochemical phenomena. The coexistence of water and oil can be realized by introduction of surfactants. In the case of water vapor adsorption on graphitic nanopores, plenty of water can be adsorbed in graphitic nanopores without surfactants, although the graphitic surface is not hydrophilic. Why are water molecules adsorbed in hydrophobic nanopores remarkably? This work can give an explicit insight to water adsorption in hydrophobic graphite nanopores using experimental and theoretical approaches. Water molecules are associated with each other to form the cluster of 1 nm in size, leading to a significant stabilization of the cluster in the graphitic nanopores. This mechanism can be widely applied to interfacial phenomena relating to coexistence of water and nanostructural materials of hydrophobicity.