Vincenzo Palermo
National Research Council of Italy, CNR-ISOF, Bologna
Vincenzo Palermo is the leader of the research unit on Advanced Materials of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISOF). He is one of the founders and leaders of the GRAPHENE FLAGSHIP European initiative.He is author of >130 papers on ISI journals (h-index: 35), and has given >50 invited talks at international conferences in last 5 years. In parallel to his scientific activity, Vincenzo Palermo is involved in science dissemination and communication. He has published dissemination books for the general audience on the life and science of Albert Einstein (Hoepli, 2015) and of Isaac Newton (Hoepli, 2016).
At the beginning of its exciting life, graphene was mostly a game for physicists. Due to the difficulty of producing sufficient amounts of high-quality graphene, researchers used single sheets of graphene exfoliated with adhesive tape, in very simple geometries, to study the properties of this new material. Later on, new methods to produce graphene on large scale were developed, based on the chemical processing of graphite in solution or on the chemical growth of graphene on metals.
Using chemistry it is possible to effectively tailor this poorly soluble and almost chemically inert material into a wide variety of forms. During the last years, the chemistry of graphene has played an ever increasing role in the controlled functionalization, large-scale production, processing and in numerous applications of such material, being also used to produce new 2D materials beyond graphene.
In this talk, I will describe how we use covalent, supramolecular and electrochemical techniques to obtain graphene-based solutions and process them in novel composite materials. We exploit in this way the 2-dimensional nature of these materials to produce porous membranes, thin coatings, foams or polymer composites for applications in electronics, mechanics or energy storage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.Electrochemical Functionalization of Graphene at the Nanoscale with Self-Assembling Diazonium Salts. ACS Nano, (2016) 10, 7125.
2.Graphene-based coatings on polymer films for gas barrier applications. Carbon, (2016) 96, 503.
3.Large area fabrication of self-standing nanoporous graphene-on-PMMA substrate. Materials Letters, (2016) 184, 47.
4.Supramolecular self-assembly of graphene oxide and metal nanoparticles into stacked multilayers by means of a multitasking protein ring. Nanoscale, (2016) 8, 6739.
5.Electrochemically exfoliated graphene oxide/iron oxide composite foams for lithium storage, produced by simultaneous graphene reduction and Fe(OH)(3) condensation. Carbon, (2015) 84, 254.
6.REVIEW: Nanoscale Mechanics of Graphene and Graphene Oxide in Composites: A Scientific and Technological Perspective. Advanced Materials, (2016) 28, 6232.
