Thrifty Scots make graphene cheap
@ 2015/11/30Graphene has been seen as a material with magical properties if it were not for the fact it costs an arm and a leg to make.
A large part of this expense is the substrate on which graphene is generally produced.
By using a process of chemical vapour deposition (CVD), graphene has often been grown as a monolayer – a layer one atom thick -by exposing platinum, nickel or titanium carbide to ethylene or benzene at high temperatures. Recent production methods have lowered these costs somewhat by incorporating copper as a substrate, but even this method can still prove expensive.
A large part of this expense is the substrate on which graphene is generally produced.
By using a process of chemical vapour deposition (CVD), graphene has often been grown as a monolayer – a layer one atom thick -by exposing platinum, nickel or titanium carbide to ethylene or benzene at high temperatures. Recent production methods have lowered these costs somewhat by incorporating copper as a substrate, but even this method can still prove expensive.