Methods to achieve large-scale production of defect-free graphene are needed to enable the commercial development of graphene-based devices. It is now shown that high-shear mixing is an effective way to exfoliate graphene and other two-dimensional materials in liquid volumes up to hundreds of litres.

In order to fulfill their potential for applications, it will be necessary to develop large-scale production methods for two-dimensional (2D) inorganic nanosheets. Here we demonstrate the large-scale shear-exfoliation of molybdenum disulfide nanosheets in aqueous surfactant solution using a kitchen blender. Using standard procedures, we measure how the MoS₂ concentration and production rate scale with processing parameters. However, we also use recently developed methods based on optical spectroscopy to simultaneously measure both nanosheet lateral size and thickness, allowing us to also study the dependence of nanosheet dimensions on processing parameters. We found the nanosheet concentration and production rates to depend sensitively on the mixing parameters (the MoS₂ concentration, C_i; the mixing time, t; the liquid volume, V; and the rotor speed, N). By optimizing mixing parameters, we achieved concentrations and production rates as high as 0.4 mg/mL and 1.3 mg/min, respectively. Conversely, the nanosheet size and thickness were largely invariant with these parameters. The nanosheet concentration is also extremely sensitive to the surfactant concentration. However, more interestingly the nanosheet lateral size and thickness also varied strongly with the surfactant concentration. This allows the mean nanosheet dimensions to be controlled during shear exfoliation at least in the range ∼40–220 nm for length and ∼2–12 layers for thickness. We demonstrate the importance of this by showing that the MoS₂ nanosheets prepared using different surfactant concentrations, and so displaying different nanosheets sizes, perform differently when used as hydrogen evolution catalysts. We find the nanosheets produced using high surfactant concentrations, which gives smaller flake sizes, perform significantly better, consistent with catalysis occurring at nanosheet edges. Finally, we also demonstrate that shear exfoliation using a kitchen blender is not limited to MoS₂ but can also be achieved for boron nitride and tungsten disulfide.

To facilitate progression from the lab to commercial applications, it will be necessary to develop simple, scalable methods to produce high quality graphene. Here we demonstrate the production of large quantities of defect-free graphene using a kitchen blender and household detergent. We have characterised the scaling of both graphene concentration and production rate with the mixing parameters: mixing time, initial graphite concentration, rotor speed and liquid volume. We find the production rate to be invariant with mixing time and to increase strongly with mixing volume, results which are important for scale-up. Even in this simple system, concentrations of up to 1 mg ml⁻¹ and graphene masses of >500 mg can be achieved after a few hours mixing. The maximum production rate was ∼0.15 g h⁻¹, much higher than for standard sonication-based exfoliation methods. We demonstrate that graphene production occurs because the mean turbulent shear rate in the blender exceeds the critical shear rate for exfoliation.

This paper reports improvement in the fracture properties of epoxy nanocomposites using plasma functionalized graphene nanoplatelets (f-GNP) at low filler content. Various mechanical tests were performed on a series of f-GNP/epoxy at low nanofiller loading to assess the effect of the nanofiller on mechanical properties. Most importantly, a significant enhancement in fracture toughness is achieved without compromising the tensile and thermal properties of the nanocomposites. The fracture toughness of neat epoxy resin was increased by over 50% with the incorporation of 0.25 wt% f-GNP loading, obtaining a value of 245 J m⁻², while the neat epoxy indicated a value of 162 J m⁻². The glass transition temperature (T_g) and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) both showed a slight increase of 3% and 2%, respectively, both at 1 wt% f-GNP loading. These enhancements are competitive with current literature results on nanocomposites, but at significantly lower filler content. We therefore demonstrate that f-GNPs are capable of providing effective toughening of epoxy resins, while maintaining other tensile and thermal properties.