Planar Polyolefin Nanostripes: Perhydrogenated Graphene

Graphene hydrogenation gives an opportunity to introduce a band gap into the graphene electronic structure. Complete hydrogenation may lead to the graphane, a fully hydrogenated counterpart of graphene. However, pure graphane has not been successfully prepared to this day. Here, we show that hydrogenation of single-walled carbon nanotubes by means of Birch reduction leads to graphene-based carbon nanostripes with uniform dimensions. Such a material exhibits interesting electrocatalytic and magnetic properties as well huge potential for hydrogen storage since the weight concentration of hydrogen is 8.78 wt.% corresponding to the composition of C₁H_1.22O_0.05 and thus exceeding the theoretical concentration in pure graphane (7.74 wt.%). The obtained concentration of hydrogen is the highest value ever reported for any graphene-based material and significantly exceeds the ultimate goal of the U.S. Department of Energy for a hydrogen storage material of 7.5 wt.%.