Aerosol Synthesis of Cargo-Filled Graphene Nanosacks

YT Chen and F Guo and A Jachak and SP Kim and D Datta and JY Liu and I Kulaots and C Vaslet and HD Jang and JX Huang and A Kane and VB Shenoy and RH Hurt, NANO LETTERS, 12, 1996-2002 (2012).

DOI: 10.1021/nl2045952

Water micro droplets containing graphene oxide and a second solute are shown to spontaneously segregate into sack-cargo nanostructures upon drying. Analytical modeling and molecular dynamics suggest the sacks form when slow-diffusing graphene oxide preferentially accumulates and adsorbs at the receding air water interface, followed by capillary collapse. Cargo-filled graphene nanosacks can be nanomanufactured by a simple, continuous, scalable process and are promising for many applications where nanoscale materials should be isolated from the environment or biological tissue.

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