Lipid Enhanced Exfoliation for Production of Graphene Nanosheets

Liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite is a widely used method to obtain graphene nanosheets, and therefore the development of a simple and efficient exfoliation procedure remains challenging. Here, we present a one-step method of graphene exfoliation in lecithin/chloroform solution. The graphene nanosheets produced by the lecithin assisted exfoliation method were analyzed by microscopy techniques, including statistical analysis of atomic force microscopy (AFM) images and Raman spectroscopy, which both indicate the presence of few-layer graphene nanosheets, including substantial content of three-layer sheets. Molecular dynamics simulations on the time scale of 0.5+ μs suggested that stability of the obtained colloid may originate from formation of lecithin reverse hemimicelles and micelles, which prevents the aggregation of exfoliated graphene flakes by entropic repulsion of the lipid hydrophobic chains.