June 30, 2014

Interlayer distance in graphite oxide gradually changes when water is added




Physicists from Umeå University and Humboldt University in Berlin have solved a mystery that has puzzled scientists for half a century. They show with the help of powerful microscopes that the distance between graphite oxide layers gradually increases when water molecules are added. That is because the surface of graphite oxide is not flat, but varies in thickness with "hills" and "valleys" of nanosize. The new findings are published in the scientific journal Nano Letters.