Graphene & 2D Materials

Two-dimensional materials (2DMs) hold great promise for future applications in many technological areas. However, the main hurdle against practical  tilization of 2DMs is the lack of effective mass production techniques to satisfy the growing qualitative and quantitative demands for scientific and technological applications. The current state-of-the-art synthesis method of 2DMs involves the dissociative adsorption of gas-phase precursors on a solid catalyst. This process is slow by nature, inefficient, and environmentally unfriendly. Our analysis and recent experimental evidence suggest that using liquid metal catalysts (LMCats) instead of solid ones bears the prospect of a continuous production of 2DMs with unprecedented quality and production speed. However, the current knowledge about the catalytic properties of LMCats is extremely poor, as they had no technological significance in the past. In fact, there exist no well-established experimental facilities, nor theoretical frameworks to study the ongoing chemical reactions on a molten surface at elevated temperatures and under a reactive gas atmosphere. Our aim is to establish a central lab at the ESRF in Grenoble, under supervision of several scientific/engineering teams across Europe to develop instrumentation capable of studying the ongoing chemical reactions on the molten catalyst, with the goal to open two new lines of research, namely in situ investigations on the catalytic activity of LMCats in general, and unraveling the growth mechanisms of 2DMs on LMCat surfaces in specific. Gaining this knowledge would be the key toward establishing the first efficient mass production method for 2DMs using the new LMCat technology.