Large-scale synthesis of fluorinated graphene by rapid thermal exfoliation of highly fluorinated graphite

Abstract

Weakly fluorinated graphene nanosheets were efficiently prepared via fast thermal exfoliation of highly fluorinated graphite. This scalable method consists of a fast temperature increase (around 10 °C s⁻¹) of fluorinated HOPG performed under an argon atmosphere, without any post-treatment. The mechanism of exfoliation induced by the defluorination step, evolving volatile fluorocarbons, has been highlighted thanks to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), high temperature X-ray diffraction (HTK-XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometry (XPS) studies on temperature, and Raman and infrared spectroscopy. The advantages of the described process are its high-yield for the preparation of fluorinated graphene nanosheets, its ease of implementation and scalability. Moreover, the fluorine content drastically decreases during such a process and graphene layers are slightly functionalized, i.e. conductive contrary to the precursor.