Exfoliation of Alpha-Germanium: A Covalent Diamond-Like Structure
2D materials have opened a new field in materials science with outstanding scientific and technological impact. A largely explored route for the preparation of 2D materials is the exfoliation of layered crystals with weak forces between their layers. However, its application to covalent crystals remains elusive. Herein, a further step is taken by introducing the exfoliation of germanium, a narrow-bandgap semiconductor presenting a 3D diamond-like structure with strong covalent bonds. Pure α-germanium is exfoliated following a simple one-step procedure assisted by wet ball-milling, allowing gram-scale fabrication of high-quality layers with large lateral dimensions and nanometer thicknesses.…
Metal-functionalized covalent organic frameworks as precursors of supercapacitive porous N-doped graphene
Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) based on polyimine with several metal ions (FeIII, CoII and NiII) adsorbed into their cavities have shown the ability to generate N-doped porous graphene from their pyrolysis under controlled conditions. These highly corrugated and porous graphene sheets exhibit high values of specific capacitance, which make them useful as electrode materials for supercapacitors.