Invited by Key Laboratory of Photochemical Conversion and Optoelectronic Materials, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (TIPCCAS), Prof. Jiaxing Huang from Northwestern University visited TIPC on Sep, 7 and gave an academic report entitled Soft Carbon Sheets: Curiosities, Challenges and Solutions.

Graphite oxide sheets, now called graphene oxide (GO), are made by exfoliation of graphite usingcentury-old chemical reactions. Interest in this old material has resurged with the rapid development of graphene since 2004, as GO is considered to be a promising precursor for bulk production of graphene. Apart from making graphene, GO itself also has many intriguing properties. For example, GO can be viewed as soft material such as two-dimensional (2D) polymers, highly anisotropic colloids that can form liquid crystals, membranes, or 2D surfactants.

In the treport, Prof. Jiaxing Huang shared some curiosity driven discoveries such as the use of GO as surfactant, which has led to all-carbon composites for solar cells. GO sheets are also 2D building blocks to construct massive arrays of nanofluidic ion channels. He highlighted a few problems associated with the manufacturing and processing of GO and its graphene product, including the potential fire risk of GO, the difficulties of imaging these single atomic layers and their ease of aggregation during processing. Then Prof. Jiaxing Huang introduced Strategies and solutions to address these problems and some applications in photovoltaics and energy storage.