Donate to Science & Enterprise

S&E on Mastodon

S&E on LinkedIn

S&E on Flipboard

Please share Science & Enterprise

Graphene-Based Material Developed with Teflon Properties

Graphene molecular illustration (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Graphene molecular illustration (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Scientists from University of Manchester in the U.K. and elsewhere have created a new material which could replace or compete with Teflon in thousands of everyday applications. The team, including Manchester’s Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov who won the 2010 Nobel Prize for their research on graphene –- the world’s thinnest material — has now modified that material to make fluorographene, a one-molecule-thick material chemically similar to Teflon.

Graphene, a one-atom-thick material that demonstrates a huge range of unusual and unique properties, has attracted increasing attention since research on it carried out at University of Manchester six years ago. Fluorographene is fully-fluorinated graphene and is basically a two-dimensional version of Teflon, showing similar properties including chemical inertness and thermal stability.

To get fluorographene, the Manchester researchers first obtained graphene as individual crystals and then fluorinated it by using atomic fluorine. To demonstrate that it is possible to obtain fluorographene in industrial quantities, the researchers also fluorinated graphene powder and obtained fluorographene paper.

Fluorographene turned out to be a high-quality insulator which does not react with other chemicals and can sustain high temperatures even in air. The team — also involving research groups from China, the Netherlands, Poland and Russia — hopes that fluorographene, which is is mechanically as strong as graphene, can be used as a thinner, lighter version of Teflon, but could also be in electronics, such as for new types of LED devices.

The results are reported this week in the advanced online issue of the journal Small.

*     *     *

3 comments to Graphene-Based Material Developed with Teflon Properties