Graphene: Laser-Burned Wonder Material Gains Metallic Powers

Graphene is the super material of the future. Now, though, researchers have found a way to embed metallic nanoparticles in graphene and turn the material into a useful catalyst for fuel cells and other applications.

Laser-inducted graphene is a flexible film with a surface of porous graphene made by exposing a common plastic known as polyimide to a commercial laser-scribing beam. Now, though, the researchers have found a way to enhance this form of graphene with reactive metals.

"The wonderful thing about this process is that we can use commercial polymers, with simple inexpensive metal salts added," said James Tour, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We then subject them to the commercial laser scriber, which generates metal nanoparticles embedded in graphene. So much of the chemistry is done by the laser, which generates graphene in the open air at room temperature. These composites, which have less than 1 percent metal, respond as 'super catalysts' for fuel-cell applications. Other methods to do this take far more steps and require expensive metals and expensive carbon precursors."

The new material, which the researchers call "metal oxide-laser induced graphene" (MO-LIG), actually becomes a new candidate to replace expensive metals like platinum in catalytic fuel-cell applications in which oxygen and hydrogen are converted to water and electricity.

"Remarkably, simple treatment of the graphene-molybdenum oxides with sulfur, which converted the metal oxides to metal sulfides, afforded a hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst, underscoring the broad utility of this approach," said Tour.

The findings could be huge for materials science, and for the generation of electricity in the future.

The findings are published in the journal ACS Nano.

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