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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The amazing electrical, optical and strength properties of graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon, have been extensively researched over the last decade. Recently, the material has been studied as a coating that might confer electrical conductivity while maintaining other properties of the underlying material.
But the "transparency" of such a graphene coating to wetting a measure of the degree to which liquids spread out or bead up on a surface is not as absolute as some researchers had thought. New research at MIT shows that for materials with intermediate wettability, graphene does preserve the properties of the underlying material. But for more extreme cases superhydrophobic surfaces, which intensely repel water, or superhydrophilic ones, which cause water to spread out an added layer of graphene does significantly change the way coated materials behave.
That's important, because these extreme cases are generally of greatest interest. For example, coating a superhydrophobic material with graphene was seen as a possible way of making electronic circuits that would be protected from short-circuiting and corrosion in water. But it's not quite that simple, the new research shows.
The findings were recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters by professors Daniel Blankschtein and Michael Strano, graduate student Chih-Jeh Shih, and three other MIT postdocs and students.
Blankschtein, the Herman P. Meissner '29 Professor of Chemical Engineering, has studied wetting properties for a long time. He had not previously examined graphene, but decided to explore its wettability now that it's a material of great interest to researchers.
Because graphene's transparency to wettability turned out not to be perfect, Blankschtein says, "this finding may be viewed as a negative result." But, he adds, "it is nevertheless extremely important to the scientific community, because it [show
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| Contact: Caroline McCall, MIT Media Relations cmccall5@mit.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology Source:Eurekalert |
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