Graphene: An Outstanding Multifunctional Coating for Conventional Materials

As the most significant facilitator of human civilization, materials are eternal jewels in the view of researchers whose brilliance never faded. However, simple conventional materials, which are most commonly used and indispensable today, seem too primitive and insufficiently functional to meet the demands of the future intelligent and informational applications, urging more functions to be integrated. The ideal strategy to achieve the transformations of conventional materials non-destructively is functionalizing the surface and retaining the original properties at the same time. Graphene, a two-dimensional material with only atomic-thickness, has come into the view of the researchers, attributed to its various outstanding properties. In recent years, a large amount of research has been devoted to "wearing" graphene to functionalize the conventional materials, booming a huge "graphene-X" family. In this concept, representative members are illustrated and their improved functions are demonstrated. Also, the prospects and challenges for this dazzling family are discussed.