Intrinsic Wettability in Pristine Graphene

Jincan Zhang; Kaicheng Jia; Yongfeng Huang; Xiaoting Liu; Qiuhao Xu; Wendong Wang; Rui Zhang; Bingyao Liu; Liming Zheng; Heng Chen; Peng Gao; Sheng Meng; Li Lin; Hailin Peng; Zhongfan Liu

doi:10.1002/adma.202103620

Intrinsic Wettability in Pristine Graphene

Adv Mater. 2022 Feb;34(6):e2103620. doi: 10.1002/adma.202103620. Epub 2021 Dec 16.

Authors

Jincan Zhang^{1

2

3

4}, Kaicheng Jia^{1

2}, Yongfeng Huang^{5

6}, Xiaoting Liu^{1

2

4}, Qiuhao Xu^{6

7}, Wendong Wang⁸, Rui Zhang⁸, Bingyao Liu^{2

4

9}, Liming Zheng^{1

2}, Heng Chen^{1

2}, Peng Gao^{9

10}, Sheng Meng^{5

6

7}, Li Lin¹¹, Hailin Peng^{1

2}, Zhongfan Liu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Nanochemistry, Beijing Science and Engineering Center for Nanocarbons, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China.
² Beijing Graphene Institute, Beijing, 100095, P. R. China.
³ Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FA, UK.
⁴ Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China.
⁵ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong, 523808, P. R. China.
⁶ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
⁷ School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
⁹ Electron Microscopy Laboratory and International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China.
¹⁰ Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China.
¹¹ Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 119077, Singapore.

PMID: 34808008
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202103620

Abstract

The wettability of graphene remains controversial owing to its high sensitivity to the surroundings, which is reflected by the wide range of reported water contact angle (WCA). Specifically, the surface contamination and underlying substrate would strongly alter the intrinsic wettability of graphene. Here, the intrinsic wettability of graphene is investigated by measuring WCA on suspended, superclean graphene membrane using environmental scanning electron microscope. An extremely low WCA with an average value ≈30° is observed, confirming the hydrophilic nature of pristine graphene. This high hydrophilicity originates from the charge transfer between graphene and water molecules through H-π interaction. The work provides a deep understanding of the water-graphene interaction and opens up a new way for measuring the surface properties of 2D materials.

Keywords: clean graphene; environmental scanning electron microscopy; intrinsic wettability; water contact angle.

Abstract

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