Preface

**Section 3 Application of Graphene and its Nanostructures 149**

Sebastian Mackowski and Izabela Kamińska

**Hydrogen Energy Conversion 177** Bhaghavathi Parambath Vinayan

Chapter 10 **Defects in Graphene and its Derivatives 215** Soumyajyoti Haldar and Biplab Sanyal

**Polymeric Biomolecules 257**

**Nanostructures 151**

**VI** Contents

**Applications 195**

Chapter 7 **Energy Transfer in Graphene-Based Hybrid Photosynthetic**

Chapter 8 **Heteroatom-Doped Graphene-Based Hybrid Materials for**

Chapter 11 **Harvesting Plasmonic Excitations in Graphene for Tunable Terahertz/Infrared Metamaterials 231**

Chapter 12 **Graphene‐Based Materials Functionalization with Natural**

Laura Martínez‐Hernández and Carlos Velasco‐Santos

Chapter 9 **Porous Graphene Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion**

Kimal Chandula Wasalathilake, Godwin Ayoko and Cheng Yan

Yuancheng Fan, Fuli Zhang, Quanhong Fu and Hongqiang Li

Edgar Jimenez‐Cervantes Amieva, Juventino López‐Barroso, Ana

Graphene is a perfectly two-dimensional (2D) material that exhibits fascinating physical, chemical and biosensing properties. Although, the scientists knew the existence of 2D crys‐ tal graphene, no one had worked out how to extract it from graphite. Since its isolation in 2004, it has captured huge attention among the scientists, researcher and industry world‐ wide. In recent years, the fascination with graphene has been growing very rapidly and it is considered as one of the most researched materials of the twenty-first century. Basically, graphene has redefined the limits of what a material can do: it boasts record thermal con‐ ductivity and the highest current density at room temperature ever measured (a million times that of copper); it is the strongest material known (a hundred times stronger than steel), but highly mechanically flexible; it is the least permeable material known (not even helium atoms can pass through it), the best transparent conductive film and the thinnest material known; and the list goes on. The vast amount of products, processes and industries that graphene could create a significant impact all stems from its amazing properties. When graphene is used as an improvement to existing materials or in a transformational capacity, its true potential could be realised.

The book "Recent Advances in Graphene Research" covers the latest advances in graphene research, including its synthesis, characterization, fundamental physical properties as well as potential applications, aiming to provide a compressive reference to the scientists in this cutting-edge field. This book brings together a team of experts to provide an overview of the most advanced topics in theory, experiments, spectroscopy and applications of graphene and its nanostructures. It contains 12 chapters divided into three sections.

Section 1 "Fundamentals of Graphene" contains four chapters. Chapter 1 introduces frac‐ tional quantum Hall effect in graphene, bilayer graphene and other Hall systems. Chapter 2 presents the electronic properties of less common forms of carbon nanostructures such as graphitic nanocone and graphitic wormhole. In Chapter 3, the authors discuss the electronic structure and topological quantum-phase transitions in strained graphene nanoribbons. Chapter 4 provides spectral statistics of weakly disordered triangular graphene flakes with zigzag edges.

In Section 2 "Graphene Synthesis", the optimized synthesis procedures of graphene and its derivatives are presented. It contains two chapters (Chapters 5 and 6). Chapter 5 contains optimization of the synthesis procedures of graphene and graphite oxide and Chapter 6 talks about Au intercalation in epitaxial graphene on SiC (0001).

The application of graphene and its nanostructured-based materials are described in Section 3 "Application of Graphene and its Nanostructures", which contains six chapters (Chapters 7–12). Energy transfer in graphene-based hybrid photosynthetic nanostructures is reported

in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 emphasizes on heteroatom-doped graphene-based hybrid materials for hydrogen energy conversion. Chapter 9 talks about porous graphene materials for ener‐ gy storage and conversion applications. Defects in graphene and its derivatives have been described in Chapter 10. Chapter 11 deals with plasmonic excitations in graphene for tunea‐ ble terahertz/infrared metamaterials and finally Chapter 12 reports graphene-based materi‐ als' functionalization with natural polymeric biomolecules.

I believe that this book will be very useful to a large number of researchers in various disci‐ plines, both in academia and industry, seeking to gain up-to-date knowledge in the field of graphene.

I am very pleased to serve as the Editor of this book, which contains a wide variety of stud‐ ies from authors all around the world. I would like to thank all the authors for their efforts in sending their best research papers to the attention of the audiences, including students, scientists and engineers, throughout the world.

I would also like to acknowledge the help given by InTech Open Access Publisher, in partic‐ ular publishing process manager, Mr. Edi Lipović, for his assistance, patience and support throughout the whole process of this book project.

> **Dr. Pramoda Kumar Nayak** Low Dimensional Carbon Materials Centre, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, Republic of Korea
