Production of Graphite Chloride and Bromide Using Microwave Sparks

Chemically modified graphite is an economical material with promising applications in its own right or as an intermediate in the synthesis of graphene. However, because of its extreme chemical inertness, to date only two methods—oxidation and fluorination—have been found which can modify graphite with high yield and large throughput. Herein, we describe a third chemical approach for the synthesis of large quantities of highly modified graphite which uses a microwave-sparks-assisted halogenation reaction. The resulting graphite halide can easily be exfoliated into monolayer graphene in organic solvents. The structure and electronic properties of the original graphene can be recovered after thermal annealing of the graphene halide. Furthermore, the graphene halide can be further modified by a variety of organic functional groups. Solution-processed field-effect transistors based on the graphene halides resulted in device performances were comparable to, or even better than, that of graphene oxide.