Deoxygenation of graphene oxide : reduction or cleaning?

We show that the two-component model of graphene oxide (GO), that is, composed of highly oxidized carbonaceous debris complexed to oxygen functionalized graphene sheets, is a generic feature of the synthesis of GO, independent of oxidant or protocol used. The debris present, roughly one-third by mass, can be removed by a base wash. A number of techniques, including solid state NMR, demonstrate that the properties of the base-washed material are independent of the base used and that it contains similar functional groups to those present in the debris but at a lower concentration. Removal of the oxidation debris cleans the GO, revealing its true monolayer nature and in the process increases the C/O ratio (i.e., a deoxygenation). By contrast, treating GO with hydrazine both removes the debris and reduces (both deoxygenations) the graphene sheets

Differential Effects of the Hydrophobic Surfactant Proteins on the Formation of Inverse Bicontinuous Cubic Phases

Prior studies have shown that the biological mixture of the two hydrophobic surfactant proteins, SP-B and SP-C, produces faster adsorption of the surfactant lipids to an air/water interface, and that they induce 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine (POPE) to form inverse bicontinuous cubic phases. SP-B has a much greater effect than SP-C on adsorption. If the two proteins induce formation of the bicontinuous structures and faster adsorption by similar mechanisms, then they should also have differential ability to form the cubic phases. To test this hypothesis, we measured small angle X-ray scattering on the individual proteins combined with POPE. SP-B replicated the doserelated ability of the combined proteins to induce the cubic phases at temperatures more than 25°C below the point at which POPE alone forms the curved inverse-hexagonal phase. With SP-C, diffraction from cubic structures was either absent or present only with larger amounts of protein at low intensities. The correlation between the structural effects of inducing curved structures and the functional effects on the rate of adsorption fits with the model in which SP-B promotes adsorption by facilitating formation of a negatively curved, rate-limiting intermediate structure