Synthesis, Characterization, and Catalytic Performance of Single- and Few-Layer Graphene

In this presentation, we will report the synthesis, chemical doping, characterization of single- and few-layer graphene, and its catalytic performance of oxygen reduction reaction. First, we will introduce the single-layer graphene synthesis over the highly-crystalline metal film grown heteroepitaxially on the single-crystalline sapphire substrate. The synchrotron XRD, LEED, EBSD technique are employed to demonstrate two epitaxy relationships between the metal film and single-crystalline sapphire substrate, as well as between graphene and metal film. We will demonstrate how to use carbon isotope technique for tracking the dissolution/diffusion of carbon atoms and how to elucidate the roles of H₂ by using a series of characterization tools and theoretical methods in the unit reaction step during the graphene synthesis. To extend the application of graphene, we introduce a new approach for the N-doped graphene synthesis to control the incorporation type between N and C atoms. With the N-doped single- and few- layer graphene as catalyst, we characterize the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance and reveal its structure-performance law.