Progress in graphene chemistry

Abstract

Graphene has been extensively studied in the past five years, in particular, in the field of physics. In the present review, we intend to summarize the recent progress in graphene chemistry, which has attracted increasing attention in the past three years. First, a summary is presented about the major progress on chemical routes to graphene, showing that graphene with controlled size, thickness, and electronic structure could be obtained by chemical methods, such as chemical vapor deposition. Then, the progress in functionalization, surface modification, and doping of graphene is highlighted. The graphene related materials, such as graphene oxide, graphane, N-doped graphene, have been synthesized and they display many unique physic-chemical properties. Finally, applications of graphene and the graphene related materials in chemistry, particularly, in catalysis, were described.