The unique and superior properties of graphene make it the nanomaterial of choice for a broad range of applications. Despite its high potentials, major challenges remain, including poor solubility, intrinsic zero band gap energy, low reactivity and the availability of well-defined pristine graphene in large quantity, which have hampered the rapid development of graphene-based functional devices. Many of these challenges can be potentially addressed through chemical functionalization of the material. Pristine graphene has its pi electrons delocalized over the entire 2D network, and is thus fairly inert chemically. We use a reactive intermediate, singlet perfluorophenyl nitrene, generated from activating perfluorophenyl azide (PFPA) by heat, microwave, or UV, to functionalize pristine graphene. By changing the functional group on PFPA, we could make the graphene soluble in common organic solvents as well as in water.
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Park, J.; Jaywawadena, H. S. N.; Chen, X.; Jayawadana, K.; Sundhoro, M.; Ada, E.; Yan, M. “A General Method for the Fabrication of Graphene-Nanoparticle Hybrid Material,” Chem. Commun. 2015, 51, 2882–2885.