1/30/2018 4 Great Methods to Make Graphene At Home, along with Graphene Basics

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GRAPHENE FACTS
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What is Graphene?
Graphene-Battery.net
Copyright 2013 Graphene is made of pure carbon. It is a
material in which the carbon atoms are
arranged in a single layer, creating a
honeycomb pattern. It should be stressed
that this layer of carbon is only one atom
thick, although some authors consider up to
ten layers of carbon to be graphene. If we
stacked ten or more graphene layers onto
one another, the resulting substance would
be called graphite, which is what we use in
Graphene is a single-layer carbon polymer. pencil leads.

The term graphene was coined by Hanns-Peter Boehm. Some scientists refer to graphene using
the phrase "zero band-gap semiconductor". It is also known under spelling variations such as
grafene and graphen, but those are incorrect in English, although they might be valid in other
languages.

If you are interested in making your own graphene, please scroll down to How To Make Graphene
at Home or visit a separate page with DIY graphene instructions only. You'll probably want to
scroll down if you've already heard about making graphene with a Lightscribe DVD drive but need

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some graphite oxide as a starting point. If you would like to invest in graphene or a graphene-
related technology, take a look at How To Invest in Graphene.

Graphene discovery
Graphene was theoretically predicted by
Phillip R. Wallace in his work named "The
Band Theory of Graphite", published in
Physical Review in 1947. Graphene was
discovered in 2003 by Andre Geim and
Kostya Novoselov at The University of
Manchester, and results were published in
2004. For this work, they have been
awarded the 2010 Nobel prize. To clarify
this, even though graphene was
successfully grown on various single-
crystal substrates since the 1970s, it
wasn’t until 2003 that graphene was nally isolated in free-form. It is interesting to know that
they used ordinary sticky tape to produce small quantities of graphene. This is very signi cant,
because the electrical and physical properties of graphene are considerably different when it is in
free-form state as opposed to being bound to a supporting crystal structure.

Graphene properties
Graphene has a number of very interesting properties. As we learned, graphene is a honeycomb
structure consisted solely of carbon atoms. We are doing our best to explain these properties in
layman's terms. If you'd rather see the numbers yourself, along with our sources, please visit our
page on Graphene Properties. That page can come in handy if you're doing some scienti c
research or simply need to see where to nd accurate information. Unless otherwise noted, the
main focus in this article is on free-form graphene.

Electronic transport system and electron mobility

A very important property of graphene is its unique electronic transport system and the resulting
high electron mobility. Electron mobility describes how fast an electron can move through a
material. Metals and semiconductors are of special interest because of their use in electronics.
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The electron speed is limited by interactions with the crystal lattice. In layman’s terms, when an
electron is moving through the material, it collides with atoms which make up the material and
those collisions slow the electron down, limiting its maximal velocity (thus heating up the
material, creating nightmares for the engineers working on it). The reality, of course, is a bit more
complex, but this approximation is good enough for this discussion.

While silicon, which is the staple of modern microelectronics, has an electron mobility of <1400
cm2/Vs, graphene has an electron mobility 200000 cm2/Vs, almost 200 times higher than silicon.
This means that electrons move much faster through graphene.

Graphene beats Silicon speed-wise

Judging by this fact alone, theoretically graphene based electronic devices could work at almost
200 times higher speeds than conventional silicon-based devices. IBM researchers managed to
achieve switching cutoff frequencies of up to 280 GHz in a 40-nm gate length graphene FET.
Scientists expect to see graphene FET cutoff frequencies of up to 600 GHz in 2013, while the
theoretical limit is up to approximately 10 THz if gate lengths are kept to a few nm. In
comparison, silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistors hit a maximum operating frequency of under
100 GHz. Hopefully the graphene breakthrough will keep the Moore law going.

Low resistivity

Another graphene property tightly connected to the high electron mobility is its low resistivity.
The resistivity of a sheet of graphene is 10-6 Ω*cm. To put this number into perspective, the
resistivity of graphene is lower than the resistivity of silver at room temperature. By the way, at
room temperature, silver was the lowest resistivity material known to scientists - that is, until
graphene came along.

Why is the free form Graphene superior?

Free-form graphene acts as a waveguide for electrons. This means that they can ow freely
without collisions, at speeds approximately 1/10 of the speed of light in vacuum. However, when
graphene is grown on a substrate such as SiO2, its electron mobility reduces by a factor of ve.
The electron mobility reduction is a consequence of graphene’s sensitive electron orbitals, which
change shape when brought in contact with other materials. This is why scientists are researching
ways to more ef ciently manufacture and interact with free-form graphene.

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Graphene probably sounds like a pretty cool material so far. If you are interested in making your
own graphene, read how to make graphene or simply keep reading, the information is further
down the page.

Graphene transistors and Graphene logic

Transistors in digital circuits have two distinct states, ON and OFF (transistors actually have
several different states besides ON and OFF but these two are of main interest in this discussion).
Pure graphene creates problems by conducting a signi cant amount of current even when in the
OFF state. Graphene conducts current in the OFF state because it is a zero band-gap
semiconductor. A zero band-gap semiconductor needs no external electrical eld to become
conductive. The result: graphene logic gates have a high static power dissipation - they consume
power both when the device is ON and OFF. There are two approaches to counteract this problem:
shorten the gate length or use doped graphene.

Graphene can be doped in the same way a silicon crystal is doped. When doped with potassium
ions, electron mobility can be reduced by up to 20 times. The controlled electron mobility
reduction is a desired effect in such cases. Additional research is needed to reveal the optimal
dopants and their concentrations.

Self-healing properties

One interesting property of graphene is self-healing. This means that if we remove a carbon atom
from anywhere within the graphene sheet, and then expose the sheet to carbon atoms or some
carbon-containing molecules, one of them will snap into place perfectly, lling the hole created by
the removed carbon atom, and tting into the hexagonal pattern. The ability to self-heal is of
great importance for nanotechnology since a single stray ion can punch a hole in the
nanostructure, rendering it useless. If the nanostructure can self-heal, then it might be able to
withstand the harsh environmental effects.

Heat conductivity

Graphene is an extremely good heat conductor. In fact, it conducts heat so ef ciently that you can
cut an ice cube using a graphene sheet. Graphene absorbs the heat from your ngers as you hold
it and transfers and concentrates the heat into a small area where the graphene "blade" is in
contact with the ice. The ice instantly melts and as it melts, more and more heat is transferred
from your hand through graphene and nally to ice, melting it further.
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Relative material Strength vs. Weight

This exciting new material is one of the strongest

materials known to science. Thanks to its single-atom
thickness, graphene can be packed into a small volume
while retaining an extremely high surface area. One
square meter (10.7 square feet) of graphene weighs
under 1 milligram. That makes it the material with
superior weight to area and area to volume ratios when
compared to other high-speci c-area materials. Despite
being very strong, the carbon layer is only one atom
thick and breaks easily. This makes working with
graphene a challenging task. Scientists have developed
materials based on graphene which take advantage of
graphene's unique properties while making it thick
enough to withstand much higher stresses.

How to buy Graphene? Lightweight Graphene-based material.

Graphene is available from a number of online and of ine resellers. The price of graphene is not
very attractive at the moment: around $300 (approx. 250 EUR) for 1 gram of pure, 3nm ltered
graphene nanopowder. Of course, graphene price is expected to reduce as the number of
manufacturers increases. Alternatively, if you're looking to make money instead of spending it,
take a look at How To Invest in Graphene.

How to make Graphene at home

It turns out that many readers want to make graphene at home, so here's a spoiler: it is possible
to create small quantities of homemade graphene by yourself! However, although possible, it's not
easy to make considerable amounts. In fact, as of this writing, scientists still have no clue how to
ef ciently make graphene in large quantities and high qualities, because the technological
processes have not yet been developed. Still, it's pretty trivial to make DIY graphene sheets in
small quantities.

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The bits you will be able to make in DIY conditions will be only a few nanometers in length, so
forget about macroscopic graphene sheets or strips. The largest piece of graphene that you can
make yourself is about 0.25mm2 (but you'll make a lot of them). That's not much larger than the
area of the dot in an exclamation mark on this webpage! In industrial uses, scientists make
transistors with gate lengths of under 25nm... so your dot-sized piece of graphene, although it
looks insigni cantly small to you, could be used to make hundreds of transistors. Still interested
in making graphene? Great, read on!

Method 1: Sticky-tape
The rst DIY method is to use a lead pencil
to deposit a thick layer of graphite onto a
paper. Then use ordinary sticky tape to peel
off a layer of graphite from the paper. Use
another piece of sticky tape to remove a
layer of graphite from the rst sticky tape.
Then, use a third piece of unused sticky
tape to remove a layer from the second
piece of sticky tape, an so on. Eventually,
the graphite layers will get thinner and
thinner, and you will end up with graphene,
which is single-layer graphite in the strict
sense, or bi-layer or few-layer graphite
(which acts almost like graphene in certain uses). Even though this way of making graphene is
only a proof-of-concept, the sticky tape method works. It takes patience and time, but it's the DIY
method which the Manchester group used in 2004. And remember, they actually won a nobel
prize for their work, so there's no messing with sticky tape!

Method 2: The kitchen blender

A group of scientists had their article published on April 20th 2014, in which they describe how to
make graphene using an approach called liquid shear exfolation. You can nd the article abstract
here but the full article is behind a paywall.

Shear exfoliation in liquids starts by pouring powdered crystal in a liquid, and then using a shear
mixer to separate (exfoliate) layers of material from the crystal. The liquid that is used in such
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processes is chosen so that the small graphene particles don't clump back together, and the result
is a liquid suspension of graphene. The suspension can then be dried to obtain graphene
nano akes, or it could be directly used in later technological processes, such as making of
graphene coatings and others.

So, how do you make graphene at home using this method? Well, you can replace the shear mixer
with a kitchen blender (since shear mixing is a fancy word for high-tech blending), and instead of
special liquids you can use water and dish detergent. The detergent is added so that the particles
don't clump, and acts as a surfactant. A great source of graphite powder are graphite pencils.
Simply powder a few pencil leads and add the powder to the detergent solution, then blend for a
while. Unless you have access to special microscopes and other equipment, you will probably be
unable to con rm the existence of graphene in your detergent solution, but there's a quick rule of
thumb which you can use to estimate the particle size. Generally speaking, if the graphene
particles are too big, they will sink to the bottom of the vessel, while if they are smaller, they will
oat to the top. Nanoparticles are so small that they will be suspended in mid-water, and this is
what you're aiming for if you want to make graphene. After you make enough graphene particles,
you might want to lter the suspension and leave it to dry.

That being said, although this method of making graphene was described in the paper mentioned
above and it worked for the researchers, don't get too excited about doing it at home this way. It's
messy and creates very small nano- akes of graphene, not something to brag to your friends
about, unless you have a high tech lab in your basement and intend to use them to make
graphene transistors. On the other hand, this technology, along with sonication assisted liquid
phase exfoliation might de ne how graphene is made in the future in industrial settings, because
of its scalability.

Method 3: DVD burner - LightScribe technology approach

To make graphene using this method, the recipe calls for a DVD computer drive with LightScribe
technology as well as some graphite oxide. You may obtain graphite oxide from a manufacturer,
or you can make some graphite oxide at home for this experiment. If you want to nd out how to
make graphite oxide at home, scroll down to the next section

Graphite oxide is water-soluble, so after mixing it with water, carefully pour it on a DVD disc.
Make sure that the graphite oxide solution is evenly distributed on the plastic surface of the disc.
After the solution has dried and created a lm of graphite oxide on the disc, place the disc into

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the DVD drive, lm-side down. Use the LightScribe software to burn in the layer of oxide. The
areas of the lm which come into contact with the laser beam will be turned into graphene. The
laser beam causes a chemical reduction which reduces graphite oxide to graphene. The resulting
graphene layer should be carefully removed from the disc and cut into appropriate sized pieces.
These pieces can be used directly to create a graphene supercapacitor! This is perhaps the easiest
way to make graphene at home, but it assumes that you have access to graphite oxide and a
Laserscribe drive.

One reader suggested that the LightScribe DVD laser can be replaced using a simple Xenon ash.
If you have a photo- ash, you could try this approach as well, and report the results to us at
"contact at our site domain". Another tip: do NOT do this if you are not comfortable with voiding
the warranty of the DVD burner.

Method 4: Heptane-water interface lm formation

-100% -100% This is the newest
DIY graphene
recipe we've heard
so far. It involves
a bit of uid
physics to explain
what's going on
here rst. If you
pour a non-water-
Rs. 1 090 Rs. 711 soluble liquid into
water it will either
Oil oating on water.
oat on top of the
water, or the water will oat on top of it,
depending on whether the added liquid is
heavier (more dense) or lighter (less dense)
than water. A common example is oil oating on top of water (see image).

One group of scientists [1] discovered that you can make graphene by pouring two solvents which
do not mix together, such as heptane and water, into a glass and adding nely ground graphite
powder and putting it in a sonication bath. You can buy heptane in most chemical supply stores,
water is readily available (it's a good idea to use distilled water), and you can easily obtain
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graphite sticks in art shops. An ultrasound bath is needed, but these are not uncommon on ebay
and the likes. The resulting graphene is one to four layers thick, and is chemically stable. It can be
extracted and deposited on a clean glass plate, or any other substrate.

The idea is to mix the nely ground graphite with

water and heptane (1:1 ratio of water and heptane)
and sonicate it for a while. What happens next is
that graphite akes exfoliate at the interface
between water and heptane and graphene actually
starts "climbing" up the glass walls of the vial. If a
hydrophilic substrate, such as a glass slide, is
introduced through the interface, a thin lm of
graphene will climb the walls of the slide as well.
The glass slide can then be extracted and after
Graphene on the water-heptane interface. drying, you'll be left with graphene-coated glass. If
you use a polyethylene vial, the resulting graphene
will not climb the walls of the vial, but you can still extract it with a slide made of glass or other
hydrophilic material. The result is shown in the image on the right.

The nal product of this graphene making process is

shown on the image on the left. Graphene is deposited as
a thin lm on both sides of the glass plate, and its slight
light-absorbing properties can be seen by looking through
it (Graphene absorbs about 2.3% of visible light). The
explanation of the process is that graphene self-
Graphene on glass.
reassembles from the small exfoliated akes on the
interface between water and heptane because the surface tension of graphene (54.8 mN/m) is
nearly right between the surface tension of water (72.9 mN/m) and heptane (20.1mN/m). The
thickness of the graphene lm is limited by capillary forces on the interface and the excess
graphene will simply fall to the bottom of the vial. The formation of thick aggregates is
suppressed by the diffusion and the energy requirement needed to form a new layer. For more
information, please refer to the original paper [1]

This is possibly the easiest way to make DIY graphene at home as an arbitrarily large sheet. Other
methods only create graphene akes, but these akes could possibly be used instead of graphite
akes in this method as a re nement stage. Try it and let us know how it goes!
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How to make Graphite oxide at home?

Disclaimer

In order to make graphene at home using the DVD method listed above, you'll need some graphite
oxide. You may buy graphite oxide from various sources, including online, or you may try making
graphene oxide yourself. In this text, we will explain how you can make graphene oxide at home,
yourself. The procedure is relatively simple and most ingredients can be bought over the counter.
However, please note that this is NOT a safe procedure and following this guide could lead to
explosions, res and serious injury. For obvious reasons, should you choose to do this yourself,
observe precautions when working with acids and explosive materials. As a matter of fact, we
believe that unless you are a licenced chemist, you are better off buying graphene oxide rather
than trying to make it at home. We offer this text as an educational resource only. By proceeding
to read the following text, you acknowledge that you understand the risks of working with
chemicals listed in the text and have a complete understanding of all the chemical reactions and
dangers that they pose to your health and safety. To avoid fume and re hazards, perform this
experiment outdoors and in a controlled, well ventilated environment. Even though care was
taken to ensure that there are no mistakes in the text, we take no responsibility for any eventual
mistakes remaining in the text.

If you have access to a lab and you're doing this for a project or an experiment, drop us a note and
let us know how it went. We would love to include your success story here.

Introduction

Graphite oxide has been known for almost 150 years now. It was rst prepared in 1859. There have
been improvements in the process since then, and many researchers in the eld commented on
the potential dangers and risks associated with the original procedure as described by B. Brodie,
who rst discovered the process. The method outlined here takes about 2h at temperatures below
45 degrees celsius if you have access to a centrifuge. If you do not, it will take a day or so for the
excess water to evaporate from the container.

The procedure

Stir 100g of powdered graphite with 50g of sodium nitrate into 2.3 liters of technical sulfuric acid.
Make sure to mix the ingredients in a much-larger-than-needed leak-proof container placed in an

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ice-bath at zero degrees celsius, as a safety measure. The container should be at least 15 to 20
liters in volume.

CAUTION! Add 300g of potassium permanganate to the mixture while constantly mixing the
ingredients. Do NOT add all 300g in one go. Instead, add potassium permanganate gram by gram
carefully to avoid heating the mixture above 20 degrees celsius! CAUTION! Potassium
permanganate is a powerful oxidizer which stains skin and other organic materials such as
clothing on contact. When mixed with sulfuric acid, it produces a highly explosive manganese
oxide, so all safety precautions must be taken! Make sure the maximum temperature is not
exceeded.

After the permanganate has been added to the mixture, remove the ice-bath and bring the
temperature up to 35 degrees celsius. Precisely and carefully maintain this temperature for 30
minutes. During this stage, the mixture will thicken and the amount of released gas will reduce.
At around the 20 minute mark, expect the mixture to be brownish-gray and of pasty consistence.

CAUTION! After 30 minutes have passed, slowly and carefully add 4.8 liters of water into the
mixture while stirring. The addition of water will cause an exothermic reaction which will increase
the temperature of the mixture to close to 100 degrees celsius, and large amounts of gas will be
released in a violent reaction! Maintain the temperature at 98 degrees celsius for another 15
minutes. CAUTION! The mixture will now be brown in color.

After maintaining the temperature for 15 minutes, further dilute the mixture to a total of 14 liters
of uid with warm water. Add 3% hydrogen peroxide in order to reduce the leftover permanganate.
After the addition of hydrogen peroxide, the mixture should turn bright yellow.

Filter the mixture while still warm. The lter will take a yellow-brown color. Wash the lter cake
three times with a total of 14 liters of warm water. Disperse the resulting graphite oxide in 32
liters of water. In order to obtain dry graphite oxide, you would need a powerful centrifuge. Since
this is probably not available, heat the water containing graphite oxide to 40 degrees celsius and
wait until the water evaporates. A wide container works best, since the larger area will facilitate
evaporation.

Higher quality graphite oxide obtained in this fashion will have a bright yellow color, while poorer
quality graphite oxide will take on a green to black hue. You can use this graphite oxide in an
aqueous solution to perform your experiments with Lightscribe drives at home.

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Further reading

For your convenience, we provide the original paper where this process was described. We used
this paper as the basis for our guide on how to make graphite oxide at home. If in doubt, follow
directions from that paper instead of directions stated on our website. There are also several
Youtube videos that show the complete process, and those might be a valuable resource as well.

We would like to thank our visitor Hera, who contacted us pointing out a typo in the text.

submit

References

[1] - S. J. Woltornist et al. - Conductive Thin Films of Pristine Graphene by Solvent Interface
Trapping

This page was last modified: June 6th, 2014.

Author: Nebojsa Mrmak

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