Graphene Glass from Direct CVD Routes: Production and Applications

Recently, direct chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of graphene on various types of glasses has emerged as a promising route to produce graphene glass, with advantages such as tunable quality, excellent film uniformity and potential scalability. Crucial to the performance of this graphene-coated glass is that the outstanding properties of graphene are fully retained for endowing glass with new surface characteristics, making direct-CVD-derived graphene glass versatile enough for developing various applications for daily life. Herein, recent advances in the synthesis of graphene glass, particularly via direct CVD approaches, are presented. Key applications of such graphene materials in transparent conductors, smart windows, simple heating devices, solar-cell electrodes, cell culture medium, and water harvesters are also highlighted.

Growing Uniform Graphene Disks and Films on Molten Glass for Heating Devices and Cell Culture

The direct growth of uniform graphene disks and their continuous film is achieved by exploiting the molten state of glass. The use of molten glass enables highly uniform nucleation and an enhanced growth rate (tenfold) of graphene, as compared to those scenarios on commonly used insulating solids. The obtained graphene glasses show promising application potentials in daily-life scenarios such as smart heating devices and biocompatible cell-culture mediums.

Direct Chemical Vapor Deposition-Derived Graphene Glasses Targeting Wide Ranged Applications

Direct growth of graphene on traditional glasses is of great importance for various daily life applications. We report herein the catalyst-free atmospheric-pressure chemical vapor deposition approach to directly synthesizing large-area, uniform graphene films on solid glasses. The optical transparency and sheet resistance of such kinds of graphene glasses can be readily adjusted together with the experimentally tunable layer thickness of graphene. More significantly, these graphene glasses find a broad range of real applications by enabling the low-cost construction of heating devices, transparent electrodes, photocatalytic plates, and smart windows. With a practical scalability, the present work will stimulate various applications of transparent, electrically and thermally conductive graphene glasses in real-life scenarios.