Open AccessEnhanced Room-Temperature Corrosion of Copper in the Presence of Graphene
Author(s) -
Feng Zhou,
Zhiting Li,
Ganesh J. Shenoy,
Lei Li,
Haitao Liu
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
acs nano
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.554
H-Index - 382
eISSN - 1936-086X
pISSN - 1936-0851
DOI - 10.1021/nn402150t
Subject(s) - graphene , materials science , copper , raman spectroscopy , x ray photoelectron spectroscopy , coating , foil method , corrosion , chemical engineering , electrochemistry , metallurgy , inorganic chemistry , composite material , nanotechnology , chemistry , electrode , physics , engineering , optics
This paper reports the enhancement of long-term oxidation of copper at room temperature by a graphene coating. Previous studies showed that graphene is an effective anticorrosion barrier against short-term thermal and electrochemical oxidation of metals. Here, we show that a graphene coating can, on the contrary, accelerate long-term oxidation of an underlying copper substrate in ambient atmosphere at room temperature. After 6 months of exposure in air, both Raman spectroscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy indicated that graphene-coated copper foil had a higher degree of oxidation than uncoated foil, although X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the surface concentration of Cu(2+) was higher for the uncoated sample. In addition, we observed that the oxidation of graphene-coated copper foil was not homogeneous and occurred within micrometer-sized domains. The corrosion enhancement effect of graphene was attributed to its ability to promote electrochemical corrosion of copper.