Abstract

Material Science 2020: Reduced Graphene Oxide Production by Lactic Acid Bacteria- Guldem Utkan- Marmara University, Turkey

Author(s): Guldem Utkan

Since graphene and graphene-related materials have found many uses from electronics to health; they attract a lot of attention in various fields of science. With the use of these materials and increasing demand from the industry, scientists have begun to look for a new, scalable and environmentally friendly techniques to produce graphene. In this study, lactic acid bacteria, Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus plantarum, were used for the production of graphene. These bacteria are fed with graphene oxide produced from graphite by Hummers method, which is then converted to graphene by removing different oxide groups. Compared to existing chemical methods for producing graphene, this process requires less energy and gives a thinner and more stable material. Graphene having different physical and surface properties and different surface area thickness ratio could be produced since the reduction of functional oxide groups by using three different bacteria were provided differently and the capacity of each bacterium was different from each other. Therefore, microbial reduction of graphene oxide appears to be a promising method for the development of new types of graphene-based materials and devices, avoiding the use of hazardous chemicals. These methods used environmentally friendly chemicals in a variety of types and applications, including nano-composites, conductive inks and biosensors.