Trifluoromethylation of grapheme, APL Materials 2014, 2, 092505.

Trifluoromethylation of grapheme

Lin Zhou¹, Lushan Zhou¹, Xi Wang¹, Jingwen Yu¹, Mingmei Yang¹, Jianbo Wang¹, Hailin Peng^1,* and Zhongfan Liu^1,*

1 Center for Nanochemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China

Abstract

We demonstrate trifluoromethylation of graphene by copper-catalyzed free radical reaction. The covalent addition of CF₃ to graphene, which changes the carbon atom hybridization from sp² to sp³, and modifies graphene in a homogeneous and nondestructive manner, was verified with Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals that CF₃ groups are grafted to the basal plane of graphene,with about 4 at. % CF₃ coverage. After trifluoromethylation, the average resistance increases by nearly one order of magnitude, and an energy gap of about 98 meV appears. The noninvasive and mild reaction to synthesize trifluoromethylated graphene paves the way for graphene'sapplications in electronics and biomedical areas.

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/aplmater/2/9/10.1063/1.4892849