Graphene‐Based Hybrid Functional Materials

Abstract

Graphene is a 2D material combining numerous outstanding physical properties, including high flexibility and strength, extremely high thermal conductivity and electron mobility, transparency, etc., which make it a unique testbed to explore fundamental physical phenomena. Such physical properties can be further tuned by combining graphene with other nanomaterials or (macro)molecules to form hybrid functional materials, which by design can display not only the properties of the individual components but also exhibit new properties and enhanced characteristics arising from the synergic interaction of the components. The implementation of the hybrid approach to graphene also allows boosting the performances in a multitude of technological applications. This review reports the hybrids formed by graphene combined with other low‐dimensional nanomaterials of diverse dimensionality (0D, 1D, and 2D) and (macro)molecules, with emphasis on the synthetic methods. The most important applications of these hybrids in the fields of sensing, water purification, energy storage, biomedical, (photo)catalysis, and opto(electronics) are also reviewed, with a special focus on the superior performances of these hybrids compared to the individual, nonhybridized components.

Hydrothermal Unzipping of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes and Cutting of Graphene by Potassium Superoxide

“…Both products have an increased ID/IG ratio compared to that of pristine graphene nanosheets, due to the increased number of sp 3 carbon atoms at the edges of the much smaller GQDs and NGs. The difference between the ID/IG ratio of the two products, as shown in Figure 10, can be reasonably attributed to the fact that NGs have more sp 3 carbon atoms due to the existence of defects at the core apart from the edges. The XPS analysis of nanographene showed different types of oxygen functional groups (see Figure 11).…”

“…They are both structured with a hexagonal carbon lattice, which is extended in two dimensions in graphene and wrapped cylindrically in CNTs. Graphene nanosheets and CNTs have been widely studied the last decades in several applications that are related to their properties, such as electrical and thermal conductivity, optical transparency, chemical reactivity, and mechanical strength [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Thanks to their nanosized thickness, they have been often used as substrates in bioapplications and nanoelectronics [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ].…”

Carbon Dots: An Excellent Fluorescent Probe for Contaminant Sensing and Remediation

“…Carbon-based nanomaterials have grown in popularity because of their superior optical, mechanical, and electrical properties. [8][9][10] Carbon dots (CDs) are the most popular because of their biocompatibility, abundance of raw materials in nature, low toxicity, and cost-effectiveness. [11,12] CDs were discovered in 2004 during the preparatory treatment of electrophoresis for single-walled carbon nanotubes, [13] and again in 2006 during the laser ablation of cement and graphite powder.…”

Advances in Medical Wearable Biosensors: Design, Fabrication and Materials Strategies in Healthcare Monitoring

“…Graphene arranged in cylinders forms carbon nanotubes, and a in hollow sphere forms fullerenes. Limitations remain with its use given its low throughput yield and high cost, making its use restricted to research labs and academia [ 114 ]. Thus, there is a constant effort to build its hybrids, the most common being graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO).…”