(Invited) Plasma Designing of Hybrid 2D Graphene: A Green Approach for Future Energy Materials
Authors: Marath Santhosh Neelakandan , Cvelbar Uros , Kovacevic Eva 
Published: August 2024

The global research interest in two-dimensional (2D) materials and their derivatives has increased significantly, driven by the requirements of application-oriented materials for different sectors, including energy storage. Among the various classes of material groups, 2D layered materials have emerged as a critical research area due to their high aspect ratio, open edge boundaries, high surface-to-volume ratios, and mechanical and electrical properties. Graphene is a widely researched 2D class material with an atomically thin structure, excellent electronic properties, very high intrinsic mobility and exceptional thermal and electrical conductivity1. Even though the research on the electronic properties of graphene is explored very well and in a matured state, the studies on non-electronic properties are still in the budding phase. One of the significant obstacles to extending the studies of graphene to different fields is the cost-effective and environmentally friendly large-scale synthesis and processing of high-quality graphene. Thus, a cutting-edge approach for probing graphene structures at the atomic scale is required to produce high-quality graphene for next-generation applications. As an alternative progressive technique, plasma-enabled methods have emerged as safe and green approaches to tailor different graphene structures at the nanoscale. During graphene production, plasma assembles the nanostructures from gaseous into a solid form or converts solid precursor to graphitic form 2,3. Besides, plasma techniques open up the possibility of tailoring the properties by crafting heteroatoms to the graphene lattice, which is beneficial for energy storage applications4. Therefore, this paper introduces the advantages of plasma-enabled techniques in designing graphene-based materials with different morphologies and orientations and tailoring them at the nanoscale using heteroatoms. Such plasma-assisted techniques ensure the high structural quality of graphene and controllability in the hybrid morphologies, making them frontrunner energy storage applications. Plasma also offers the production of graphene directly on any substrate surface, gives a new direction to designing binder-free electrodes for energy-related applications, and could be used as a competitive alternative approach to the widely known wet chemical procedures to design advanced graphene electrode materials for next-generation energy storage devices.

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