Polymer-Graphene Nanocomposites: Preparation, Characterization, Properties, and Applications

Carbon the 6th element in the periodic tables has always remains a fascinating material to the researcher and technologist. Diamond, graphite, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and newly dis‐ covered graphene are the most studied allotropes of the carbon family. The significance of the these material can be understand as the discovery of fullerene and graphene has been awarded noble prizes in the years 1996 and 2010 to Curl, Kroto & Smalley and Geim & Novalec, respec‐ tively. After the flood of publications on graphite intercalated [1], fullerenes (1985) [2], and car‐ bon nanotubes (1991) [3], graphene have been the subject of countless publications since 2004 [4,5]. Graphene is a flat monolayer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional (2D) honeycomb lattice, completely conjugated sp2 hybridized planar structure and is a basic build‐ ing block for graphitic materials of all other dimensionalities (Figure 1). It can be wrapped up into 0D fullerenes, rolled into 1D nanotube or stacked into 3D graphite.