Chemical Vapor Deposition of Methane in the Presence of Cu/Si Nanoparticles as a Facile Method for Graphene Production

This study reports on a facile, scalable, and economical method for the synthesis of graphene sheets via catalytic decomposition of methane. The catalyst was prepared by a simple sol-gel method. In this method, copper was doped by a silicon dioxide substrate to prepare a novel catalyst to be used in the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The CVD method has a remarkably high capacity as well as efficiency potentials in terms of high-yield graphene production with superior morphology. Few-layered graphene (FLG) sheets were produced successfully under atmospheric pressure. The X-ray crystallography patterns confirmed the formation of graphene sheets. The obtained graphene was characterized by Raman spectroscopy, and the results proved that high quality graphene sheets with an I-D/I-G ratio of 0.7 were obtained. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) micrographs were also used to investigate the shape and the morphology of the prepared FLG. The average thickness of the obtained graphene sheets was found to be equal to 8 nm using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). XRD, FTIR and XPS spectra were also obtained to confirm the formation of graphene and its nature.