Silicon contamination found to hinder commercial impact of graphene

Graphene has numerous properties including flexibility, transparency, high-strength, and conductivity - both thermal and electrical – that is 10 times better than copper.

The material was first isolated at Manchester University by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov in 2004, earning them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010.

Applications identified for graphene include flexible electronics, more powerful computer chips and solar panels, water filters and bio-sensors but its performance has been mixed and industry adoption slow.

Now a study published in Nature Communications identifies silicon contamination as the cause of disappointing results and details how to produce higher performing, pure graphene.

The RMIT University team led by Dr Dorna Esrafilzadeh and Dr Rouhollah Ali Jalili inspected commercially-available graphene samples with a scanning transition electron microscope.

"We found high levels of silicon contamination in commercially available graphene, with massive impacts on the material's performance," Esrafilzadeh said.

According to RMIT, tests found that silicon present in natural graphite, the raw material used to make graphene, was not being fully removed when processed.