Shrinky Dinks: Crumpled Graphene

 
      "Brown University researchers have developed a method for making super-wrinkled and super-crumpled sheets of the nanomaterial graphene. The research shows that the topography can enhance some of graphene’s already interesting properties."

      "Crumple a piece of paper and it’s probably destined for the trash can, but new research shows that repeatedly crumpling sheets of the nanomaterial graphene can actually enhance some of its properties. In some cases, the more crumpled the better."

      "The research by engineers from Brown University shows that graphene, wrinkled and crumpled in a multi-step process, becomes significantly better at repelling water—a property that could be useful in making self-cleaning surfaces. Crumpled graphene also has enhanced electrochemical properties, which could make it more useful as electrodes in batteries and fuel cells."

        The research is published in the journal Advanced Materials.
         
       In keeping with our honey-comb theme of late, graphene is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a two-dimensional, atomic-scale, honey-comb lattice in which one atom forms each vertex. 

      It is the basic structural element of other allotropes, including graphite, charcoal, and carbon nanotubes.

      "Researchers deposited layers of graphene oxide onto shrink films—polymer membranes that shrink when heated (kids may know these as Shrinky Dinks). As the films shrink, the graphene on top is compressed, causing it to wrinkle and crumple. To see what kind of structures they could create, the researchers compressed same graphene sheets multiple times. After the first shrink, the film was dissolved away, and the graphene was placed in a new film to be shrunk again."

      "The researchers experimented with different configurations in the successive generations of shrinking. For example, sometimes they clamped opposite ends of the films, which caused them to shrink only along one axis. Clamped films yielded graphene sheets with periodic, basically parallel wrinkles across its surface. Unclamped films shrank in two dimensions, both length- and width-wise, creating a graphene surface that was crumpled in random shapes."


      "They showed that a highly crumpled graphene surface becomes superhydrophobic—able to resist wetting by water. When water touches a hydrophobic surface, it beads up and rolls off. When the contact angle of those water beads with an underlying surface exceeds 160 degrees—meaning very little of the water bead’s surface touches the material—the material is said to be superhydrophobic."

       "The team also showed that crumpling could enhance the electrochemical behaviors of graphene, which could be useful in next-generation energy storage and generation. The research showed that crumpled graphene used as a battery electrode had as much as a 400% increase in electrochemical current density over flat graphene sheets. That increase in current density could make for vastly more efficient batteries."

           Happy crumpling from blizzardy Denver!

Steph