Photocatalytic Lab Report

Ever since graphene has been found, scientists began to wonder how the substance will play a huge role in our future. Predicting which sector graphene can improve is easy. With the prior knowledge from previous experiments, the characteristics found could be used to formulate a list of industrial sectors where the specific characteristics would be useful. However, the experimentation for these hypotheses require countless amount of experimentation. In most cases, graphene would be mixed with several other useful materials to create a composite material. These added materials could make the composite material stronger, lighter, harder, etc. Unfortunately, these added materials may also bring in unfavorable changes. Furthermore, nobody

Photocatalysis is one of the clean and renewable technologies, utilizes naturally enormous abundant, clean and safe solar power. The cheap solar energy harnessing is one of the most exciting features to gain significant attention toward photocatalysis direction. Titanium oxide-based photocatalyst has shown considerable interest since the discovery because of the excellent properties such as chemical and photostability, eco-friendly nature and high catalytic reactivity.2,3 TiO2 photocatalysts have been widely engaged in various photocatalytic applications such as water and air cleaning, self-cleaning and anti-fogging TiO2 coated glasses, tiles, and shelters. TiO2 only generates electron-hole pairs under UV light, which are responsible for the photocatalytic reaction. There are numerous investigations have been done to alter the TiO2 structures to absorb visible lights. The strategy includes adding noble metals4, cations5, non-metals6, and metal oxides7 through various methods such as sol-gel8, physical ion-implantation methods,

Buckminsterfullerene, also known as “buckyball” is composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged in twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons, with a carbon atom at each vertex of each polygon and a bond along each polygon edge. It is insoluble in water, except its hydrated form. Hydrated buckyballs have a dense, stable shell that is composed of water molecules. Scientist use C60 in nanotechological applications, because of its high heat resistance and electrical

The most common point-of-use filtration media is activated carbon. Activated carbon is able to absorb organic and inorganic contaminates and are more commonly used to reduce any flavor or odor in the water2, 27, 28. In addition to the high surface area, activated carbon can chemically interact with heavy metals in the water. Most carbon materials like activated carbon are known to have high adsorption capabilities towards metal ions24. The pores of the carbon allow for trapping of large particles as well as increasing the available surface for contaminates to interact. Table 1 shows the overall size distribution of the activated carbon grains, average pore diameter and elemental composition of the activated carbon used for experimentation. The carbon has a rough exterior with many cavities and pathways for particles and ions in the water to filter (Figure 1).

The structure of Graphite is different from a diamond. It has carbon atoms connected in a hexagonal pattern. The bonds between the carbon atoms are stronger in graphite than they are in diamonds.

Solar energy is trapped in the process of photosynthesis (6CO2 +6H2O  C6H12O6 + 6O2). The basic resources needed for this reaction in plants are water, carbon dioxide, light, and chloroplasts. The products for photosynthesis are carbohydrates and oxygen. Oxygen and carbohydrates are the reactants in cellular respiration in humans. The “photo” (light) part of the photosynthesis takes place in the hylakoid of the chloroplasts. The “synthesis” part of photosynthesis takes place in the stroma, the fluid within the chloroplasts that surround the thylakoids. In photosynthesis the final electron acceptor is NADP+ which is reduced to NADPH. NADP+ is an important part of the Hill Reaction and the experiment that was performed in lab (Stegengaga, 2015).

This conglomerate composed of protein-lipid, sponge-like carbon, and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was administrated by the researchers to mice in order to study the material’s ability to “transport the hydrophobic drug docetaxel (DTX) and perfluorohexane (PFH) for deep tumor penetration and therapy” (Su et al, 2016). The Lf-lipo-GNS composite is capable of carrying large amounts of drugs in its pores which can be released through the absorption of light by the GNS. By applying near-infrared (NIR) irradiation, the gasification of PFH occurs due to “an increase in local temperature” in the graphene nanosponge which as a result “damages and ruptures tumor spheroids” (Su et al, 2016). Consequently, the combined effects of “gasification and chemo- and thermotherapy” can substantially reduce tumors and even completely eliminate them without future reappearance.

The discovery of graphene was given credit to the director of the center for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology at the University of Manchester, Andre Geim and his colleague Kostya Novoselev. The paper was published in October 2004 in Science Magazine. The title of the paper was "Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films." The paper has become one of the most cited papers in material physics. Around the time of the discovery, carbon nanotubes was an interesting area of research. Geim was also interested in carbon nanotubes but had an idea about using them in an unfolded configuration. With the idea for the unfolded nanotubes he took a graphite block and polished it.

Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and is the 4th most abundant element by mass in the universe. It is found in a large majority of organic material on Earth and its ability to bond in many different ways allows for a large diversity of organic compounds. These organic compounds that are formed in different shapes and structures are called allotropes. Carbon is a special element that is the base for almost all organic compounds and since it can form many allotropes of itself, and its allotropes have many different uses that can be applied to modern science. The most common allotropes of carbon are: diamonds, amorphous carbon, graphite, nanotubes, and fullerenes. Some of these allotropes have already made big

Sometimes, the greatest breakthrough originates from something simple. In the case of graphene, the breakthrough started when scientists began to slice graphite, a common substance present in pencil, atom by atom. When it reaches to an atom thick, each single layer is known as graphene. It turns from being a humble pencil lead to a revolutionary material that may earn the title ‘material of the decade’. The properties of graphene are extraordinary, it is recorded as the best electrical and thermal conductor in the world. Even though the material is known to be harder than a diamond, it successfully shocked scientists for its flexibility. These facts sparked the curiosity of scientists and encouraged them to explore more of this material.

Graphene of the highest quality and best structural integrity is acquired by mechanical exfoliation of highly oriented graphite . As graphene produced in this method is structurally superior, it is used as a reference and new methods are compared relative to it. However, although mechanically exfoliated graphene exhibits low amounts of

“Recently we 've shown how you can make graphene a home in a blender using pencils and a household detergent. The silly putty: we made it ourselves using a homemade recipe of oil and boric acid. Everything is doable at home,” he added.

Multi wall nanotubes are made up of multiple roll layered of graphene. It can come out either in the course of a coaxial assembly of SWNT similar to a coaxial line, or as a single sheet of graphite rolled into the form of a coil. The diameter of MWNTs is usually in the range of 5 nm to 50 nm while the interlayer distance is as close as the distance between graphene layers in graphite. MWNT is easily produced in high volume quantities compared to SWNT but the structure of MWNT isles understood as it possessed greater complexity and variety. So, the regions of structural imperfection may diminish its desirable properties.

Graphene is a form of carbon which has recently been receiving a great deal of attention. Some have come to call it “the wonder material” due to its many extraordinary properties. Although isolated in 2004, graphene's properties had been calculated decades earlier. It consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. A single sheet of graphene is stronger than steel and yet remains very flexible, retaining all of its properties despite being bent and unbent multiple times. It is able to sustain extremely high electric current densities, is impermeable to all gasses, has a thermal conductivity double that of diamond and a very high electron mobility at room temperature. It is also easily chemically functionalized,

The graphene as a Patch Antenna is able to radiate electromagnetic waves in the terahertz band (0.1 -10.0 THz) [22]. It is utilized to construct antennas and transmissions lines on elastic substrate, but the copper cannot. For the same geometry, the metal antennas working at the same frequencies are narrowband but the graphene antenna is a wideband antenna[23].The conductivity of graphene is very frequency-dependent but has completely different behavior at RF/microwave respect to THz and optics Properties of graphene depend on a a number of parameters including magnetic and electrical field bias, electron velocity, temperature and scattering rate. The printed graphene can be mechanical flexibility, lightweight, low cost consumable wearable electronics and environmental friendliness. Using the Kubo formula, [24] to calculat the conductivity of single layer graphene, that can be reduced to a simple Drude model if uc >> ħω, where µc is the Fermi level of graphene and ω is the frequency: