Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2111.01727

Foam Flows in Turbulent Liquid Exfoliation of Layered Materials and Implications for Graphene Production and Inline Characterisation

Diego Tomohisa Pérez-Álvarez·Philip Davies·Jason Stafford
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Surfactants are often used to stabilise two-dimensional (2D) materials in environmentally friendly solvents such as water. Aqueous-surfactant solutions prevent agglomeration of nanosheets through steric and electrostatic repulsion, facilitating the production of high concentration nanomaterial dispersions. Turbulent, shear-assisted liquid exfoliation of layered precursor materials produces defect-free nanosheets by promoting mixing and generating sufficiently high shear rates to overcome out-of-plane van der Waals bonds. In the presence of a liquid-gas interface, a consequence of using surfactants in turbulent flows is the formation of foam. In this experimental study, batch exfoliation of graphite particles into few-layer graphene was performed using a kitchen blender modified to operate across Reynolds numbers, $Re \sim 10^{5} - 10^{6}$. Foam formation during turbulent operation was found to influence the hydrodynamics of the liquid exfoliation process. Measurements on the motion of graphite particles indicate that surfactant concentration alters the rheology of the mixture under dynamic conditions and changes the material flow patterns within the device. As a result, the surfactant concentration that maximised graphene concentration was non-unique. This highlights that the design and selection of surfactants should consider both molecular scale repulsion effectiveness and macroscale hydrodynamics of the liquid exfoliation process. Furthermore, the multi-phase turbulent flows and complex fluids that exist during batch exfoliation in aqueous-surfactants create major challenges for realising $\textit{in situ}$ 2D material characterisation and quality control. Here, we have developed a protocol to enable inline uv-vis-nIR spectroscopy to determine graphene production and atomic layer number changes in-process.

Explore related subjects

cond-mat.mtrl-scicond-mat.mes-hallphysics.app-phphysics.flu-dyn

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Diego Tomohisa Pérez-Álvarez, Philip Davies, Jason Stafford. 2021-11-02. Foam Flows in Turbulent Liquid Exfoliation of Layered Materials and Implications for Graphene Production and Inline Characterisation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cherd.2021.10.041

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Measuring chiral phonons

Chiral phonons are quantized vibrations where the atomic motion in a solid breaks improper rotation symmetries. In many cases, chiral phonons possess angular momenta and are therefore selective to circularly polarized light. Both fundamental and applied research efforts on chiral phonons have been gaining increasing attention owing to their importance in a variety of fields including spintronics, spin-selective chemical reactions, thermal transport, quantum information processing and biosensing, where the bi-directional spin-lattice coupling enabled by chiral phonons can be harnessed in new ways, and potentially lead to new functionalities. Thus far, the studies of chiral phonons across diverse materials platforms have evolved largely independently within these fields, but the experimental techniques are often interrelated. In this perspective, we present a detailed description, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the current approaches for experimentally measuring chiral phonons in chiral and achiral materials. We conclude with a discussion of new methods for measuring chiral phonons. Ultimately, this work seeks to offer an experimental guide for systematically investigating the properties of chiral phonons in various materials systems and applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2026

A model of grain growth in UN integrating molecular dynamics, phase-field modeling, and uncertainty quantification

Grain growth kinetics and grain-boundary (GB) properties in uranium mononitride (UN) are investigated through an integrated multiscale framework combining molecular dynamics (MD), phase-field modeling, and surrogate-assisted uncertainty quantification. MD simulations yield GB energies for 27 symmetric tilt boundaries from 0--2000~K, which are consistent with available DFT values. The average GB energy is nearly temperature-independent below 1000~K and increases at higher temperatures. A mechanistic pore-drag model applied to the only available grain growth dataset for actinide nitrides yields a mobility reduction factor of $s \approx 0.93$--$0.99$, statistically indistinguishable from unity, confirming that pore drag is negligible under the experimental conditions. The intrinsic GB mobility is therefore extracted directly from the effective mobility, yielding $M_0 = 2.05\times10^{-15}$~m$^4$/(J$\cdot$s) and $Q_M = 0.89$~eV. Phase-field simulations conducted from 1500--2000~K confirm normal curvature-driven grain growth, with grain size distributions converging to the Hillert-like form. A surrogate-assisted global sensitivity analysis---combining principal component analysis, Gaussian process regression, and Sobol decomposition---reveals that the mobility prefactor $M_0$ dominates output variance at all times, followed by the activation energy $Q_M$, while the GB energy $\gamma$ contributes minimally. These results establish the first quantitative grain growth framework for UN and identify the reduction of uncertainty in $M_0$ and $Q_M$ as the highest-priority target for future experimental efforts.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2026

Silicon Solar Cell Design for >30% Efficiency via Singlet Fission

Singlet fission (SF) materials convert high-energy photons into multiple charge carriers, providing a route to exceed the efficiency limits of single-junction silicon solar cells without many of the complexities of multi-junction tandem designs. Following the first demonstration of an SF-enhanced silicon solar cell in 2025, there is a need to understand how SF materials can be effectively integrated into high-efficiency industrial silicon devices and translated from proof of concept to a manufacturable technology. Using coupled optical and electrical simulations, we assess the efficiency potential of several industrially relevant silicon cell architectures combined with SF materials. Interdigitated back-contact (IBC) cells offer the greatest potential for improvement due to unrestricted front-surface access and can achieve efficiencies exceeding 33%. However, performance is highly sensitive to front-surface passivation quality. Appropriate silicon design, particularly controlled surface doping and fixed interfacial charge, can mitigate recombination losses and relax passivation requirements for ultra-thin exciton-transfer layers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗