CVD growth of graphene/h-BN layers, structural characterization and study of layers - water interaction

• Grant number: 13/21190-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: February 28, 2014
• End date: February 27, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal Investigator: Juan Alfredo Guevara Carrió
• Grantee: Juan Alfredo Guevara Carrió
• Host Investigator: Antonio Helio de Castro Neto
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia (EE). Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

Abstract

Recently, graphene's interaction with water, ionic solutions and gases came into sharp focus. It was been argued that water could flow anomalously fast over graphitic surfaces, and that flow of aqueous ions and gases through defects in graphene and graphene oxide membranes have very high selectivity. This led to graphene application research in water desalinization, single-molecule DNA sequening, gas separation, etc. Related aspect of hydrophobic property of graphene, and "wetting transparency" of graphene, are sharply debated in the current literature. We aim to systematically investigate graphene-water interaction using contact-angle measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM), Raman, optical and FTIR measurements. We will compare graphene's properties to those of similarly structured 2D materials graphene-oxide, and hexagonal boron-nitride (BN). The modulation of the wetting and wetting transparency will be investigated in the case of graphene/BN heterostructures. At NUS Graphene Research Centre, we will join the Nano/Bio Group who has extensive expertise in those measurements and pioneered investigation of ion and DNA transport though nanopores in graphene membranes. The combined knowledge will be applied in the investigation of the single-molecule biosensing and water filtering. The first step of the project will be the development and implementation of the fabrication methods for large area BN films, as well as graphene-BN films with pristine interface between the two layers. Immediate application of this work will be in the design of nanopore-sensors for single-molecule characterization and DNA sequencing.

Scientific publications

(The scientific publications listed on this page originate from the Web of Science or SciELO databases. Their authors have cited FAPESP grant or fellowship project numbers awarded to Principal Investigators or Fellowship Recipients, whether or not they are among the authors. This information is collected automatically and retrieved directly from those bibliometric databases.)

HONG, SEUNGHYUN; CONSTANS, CHARLOTTE; MARTINS, MARCOS VINICIUS SURMANI; SEOW, YONG CHIN; GUEVARA CARRIO, JUAN ALFREDO; GARAJ, SLAVEN. Scalable Graphene-Based Membranes for Ionic Sieving with Ultrahigh Charge Selectivity. Nano Letters, v. 17, n. 2, p. 728-732, FEB 2017. (13/21190-2)