Soluble graphene nanostructures and assemblies therefrom

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10326077-B2
Application number	US-201615198013-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 30, 2016
Priority date	Jan 8, 2010
Publication date	Jun 18, 2019
Grant date	Jun 18, 2019

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method for preparing large soluble graphenes. The method comprises attaching one or more hindering groups to the graphene, which can prevent face-to-face graphene stacking by reducing the effects of inter-graphene attraction. The large graphenes can absorb a wide spectrum of light from UV to near infrared, and are useful in photovoltaic devices and sensitizers in nanocrystalline solar cells.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A composition comprising a population of graphene quantum dots, wherein a quantum dot comprises graphene, a first solubilizing group, and a first binding group, wherein the first solubilizing group is a substituted phenyl moiety, wherein the substituted phenyl moiety is directly bonded to the graphene, wherein the substituted phenyl moiety comprises a substituent attached ortho- to the graphene.

2. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the graphene includes from about 100 to about 60000 conjugated atoms.

3. The composition of claim 2 , wherein the graphene has a ribbon structure having a monolayer thickness, a ribbon length, and a ribbon width, wherein the ribbon length is from about 2 nanometers to about 2 centimeters and the ribbon width is from about 0.5 nanometers to about 5 nanometers.

4. The composition of claim 2 , wherein the conjugated atoms include
(a) covalently-linked carbon atoms, and
(b) a system of p-orbitals populated with delocalized electrons, wherein the system of p-orbitals overlap with one another across an intervening sigma bond to bridge the sigma bond, and the delocalized electrons are associated collectively to the graphene.

5. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the graphene includes from about 100 to about 600 conjugated atoms.

6. The composition of claim 5 , wherein the graphene has a sheet structure having a monolayer thickness, a sheet length, and a sheet width, wherein the sheet length is between about 1 nanometer and about 4 nanometers and the sheet width is from about 0.5 nanometers to about 5 nanometers.

7. The composition of claim 6 , wherein the sheet width and the sheet length provide a sheet area of 3 square nanometers to about 20 square nanometers.

8. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the first solubilizing group includes a steric hindering group.

9. The composition of claim 8 , wherein the steric hindering group includes one branching group and three bulking groups.

10. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the first binding group is a chemical functional group having an attraction to an inorganic solid.

11. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the first binding group is a chemical functional group having an attraction to titanium dioxide.

12. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the first binding group is
a carbonyl or derivative thereof,
a carboxylate or derivative thereof,
a sulfonyl or derivative thereof,
a phosphinyl or derivative thereof,
a phosphonyl or derivative thereof,
a phosphate or derivative thereof, or
an arsenate or a derivative thereof.

Assignees

• Univ Indiana Res & Tech Corp

Inventors

• Li Liang-Shi
• Yan Xin

Classifications

• Y10T428/265

  1 mil or less · CPC title

• C01B32/182 Primary

  Graphene · CPC title

• B82Y30/00

  Nanotechnology for materials or surface science, e.g. nanocomposites · CPC title

• Y10S977/734

  Fullerenes, i.e. graphene-based structures, such as nanohorns, nanococoons, nanoscrolls or fullerene-like structures, e.g. WS2 or MoS2 chalcogenide nanotubes, planar C3N4, etc. · CPC title

• H01L51/0096

  Electricity · mapped topic