Sweet graphene: exfoliation of graphite and preparation of glucose-graphene cocrystals through mechanochemical treatments

Mechanochemical treatment with carbohydrates leads to the successful exfoliation of graphite and this can be considered as a green approach to the preparation of graphene. Glucose, fructose and saccharose were used and the former showed the best exfoliation behaviour to generate graphene materials with a relatively low number of defects, as evidenced by Raman spectroscopy. The addition of small amounts of water to the ball milling treatment led to the formation of glucose-graphene co-crystals, which exhibited superior properties in terms of colloidal stability and minimization of cell toxicity.