Efficient and scalable production of two-dimensional (2D) materials is required to overcome technological hurdles towards the creation of a 2D-materials-based industry. Here, we present a novel approach developed for the exfoliation of layered crystals, i.e., graphite, hexagonal boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides. The process is based on high-pressure wet-jet-milling (WJM), resulting in 2 L/hr production of 10 g/L of single- and few-layer 2D crystal flakes in dispersion making the scaling-up more affordable. The WJM process enables the production of defect-free and high-quality 2D-crystal dispersions on a large scale, opening the way for the full exploitation in different commercial applications, e.g., anodes active material in lithium ion batteries, reinforcement in polymer-graphene composites, and transparent conductors as we demonstrate in this report.
@article{arxiv.1804.10688,
title = {High-yield production of 2D crystals by wet-jet milling},
author = {Antonio Esau Del Rio Castillo and Vittorio Pellegrini and Alberto Ansaldo and Filiberto Ricciardella and Haiyan Sun and Luigi Marasco and Joka Buha and Zhiya Dang and Luca Gagliani and Emanuele Lago and Nicola Curreli and Silvia Gentiluomo and Francisco Palazon and Peter Toth and Elisa Mantero and Manuel Crugliano and Andrea Gamucci and Andrea Tomadin and Marco Polini and Francesco Bonaccorso},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.10688},
year = {2018}
}