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After Graphene: Electrochemical Routes to the Next Generation of 2D Materials
Graphene proved that single-atom-thick materials could transform electronics, energy storage, and catalysis. A 2025 review in Small Methods now maps how electrochemical techniques are enabling scalable production of the hundreds of other 2D materials waiting in the wings.
By Sean K.S. Shin
This blog summarizes research trends based on published paper abstracts. Specific numbers or findings may contain inaccuracies. For scholarly rigor, always consult the original papers cited in each post.
Graphene was supposed to change everything. When Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov peeled single layers of carbon from graphite with adhesive tape in 2004—a feat that earned them the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics—the materials science community anticipated rapid commercial transformation. Two decades later, graphene has delivered on some promises (composite materials, thermal management, sensors) while falling short on others (flexible electronics at scale, semiconductor replacements). But graphene's most lasting contribution may be conceptual rather than commercial: it proved that atomically thin materials possess properties their bulk counterparts do not, and it launched a global search for the hundreds of other two-dimensional materials that theory predicts should exist. A 2025 review by Zhu et al. in Small Methods examines a critical bottleneck in that search—how to actually make these materials at scale—and argues that electrochemistry offers the most promising path forward.
The Research Landscape
The 2D Materials Zoo
Beyond graphene, the family of two-dimensional materials is vast and varied, encompassing semiconductors with tunable band gaps, metallic conductors with hydrophilic surfaces, atomically smooth insulators, and materials whose electronic properties change with layer thickness. The theoretical catalog runs to thousands of potential compounds, each with distinct characteristics that could serve applications from transistors to energy storage.
The problem is production. The scotch-tape method that launched the field is elegant but not scalable. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) produces high-quality films but requires expensive equipment, high temperatures, and carefully controlled substrates. Liquid-phase exfoliation—ultrasonicating bulk crystals in solvents—scales better but offers limited control over layer number and lateral dimensions. Each 2D material has its own chemistry, and techniques that work for graphene often fail for structurally different materials.
Zhu et al. (2025) make the case that electrochemical methods offer a uniquely versatile toolkit for 2D material production. Their review covers four principal techniques: intercalation-exfoliation, electrochemical deposition, electrochemical etching, and topotactic transformation. What unites these approaches is the use of applied voltage to drive chemical processes at controlled rates—offering a degree of precision that purely chemical or mechanical methods lack.
Intercalation-exfoliation is perhaps the most intuitive approach. Ions are electrochemically driven between the layers of a bulk layered crystal, expanding the interlayer spacing until the layers separate. The technique has been demonstrated for TMDs, other layered compounds, and various layered oxides. The key advantage over chemical intercalation is control: by tuning the applied potential and current, researchers can regulate the degree of intercalation and, consequently, the thickness and quality of the resulting nanosheets.
Electrochemical deposition takes the opposite approach, building 2D materials layer by layer on a substrate from dissolved precursors. This bottom-up method can produce films with controlled thickness and composition but is typically limited to materials that can be deposited from solution—primarily metal oxides, hydroxides, and sulfides.
Electrochemical etching selectively removes components from a bulk material to create a 2D structure. By applying controlled potentials, specific layers within a layered precursor can be dissolved while preserving the remaining 2D sheets. This approach can avoid the use of harsh chemical etchants, offering a safer and potentially more controllable alternative for producing certain 2D materials at scale.
Topotactic transformation—electrochemically converting one crystal structure into another while preserving the overall morphology—is the least established but potentially most creative approach. It enables access to 2D materials that cannot be easily exfoliated from naturally layered precursors, expanding the accessible portion of the theoretical 2D materials catalog.
Applications Driving Demand
The review highlights three application domains where 2D materials beyond graphene show particular promise. In batteries and supercapacitors, 2D carbide/nitrides and TMDs offer high surface areas, good conductivity, and fast ion transport—properties that translate to high power density and rapid charge-discharge cycles. In electrocatalysis, the abundant active edge sites of 2D materials make them efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution, oxygen reduction, and CO₂ conversion. In electronics, semiconducting TMDs with tunable band gaps could enable transistors, photodetectors, and light-emitting devices at the ultimate thickness limit.
Critical Analysis
Zhu et al. provide a thorough technical overview, but several important caveats deserve emphasis.
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| # | Claim | Source | Hedging |
|---|
| 1 | Electrochemical methods enable scalable production of diverse 2D materials with precise surface property control | Zhu et al., 2025 | Demonstrated at laboratory scale; industrial-scale validation remains limited |
| 2 | Four electrochemical techniques (intercalation-exfoliation, deposition, etching, topotactic transformation) constitute a versatile production toolkit | Zhu et al., 2025 | Comprehensiveness is a review framing; not all techniques work equally well for all materials |
| 3 | Applications in batteries, electrocatalysis, and electronics benefit from the unique properties of electrochemically produced 2D materials | Zhu et al., 2025 | Application potential demonstrated; commercial products from non-graphene 2D materials remain scarce |
The gap between laboratory demonstrations and commercial production remains substantial. Most electrochemical 2D material production has been demonstrated at milligram to gram scales. Whether these methods can produce kilograms or tons—the quantities needed for battery electrodes or catalyst coatings—is an open engineering question. The review acknowledges remaining challenges but could have benefited from a more explicit analysis of the techno-economic barriers to scale-up.
Open Questions
- Defect control: Electrochemical processing inevitably introduces defects. For electronic applications requiring pristine crystal quality, can electrochemical methods compete with CVD?
- Standardization: The field lacks standardized protocols for characterizing 2D material quality (layer number distribution, lateral size, defect density). How will this be resolved as the field matures?
- Environmental assessment: Are electrochemical methods genuinely greener than chemical alternatives when accounting for electrolyte sourcing, energy consumption, and waste treatment?
- Material stability: Many 2D materials degrade in ambient conditions (other layered compounds oxidizes in air within hours). Can electrochemical surface modification improve environmental stability?
- Integration: How will 2D materials be integrated into existing manufacturing workflows for batteries, electronics, and catalysts?
Looking Forward
The story of 2D materials is entering its second act. The first act—dominated by graphene—established the scientific foundations and generated enormous excitement. The second act is quieter and more technically demanding: turning a family of hundreds of theoretically predicted materials into practically useful products. Electrochemistry, with its inherent controllability and scalability potential, appears well positioned to be the enabling production technology for this transition. But as Zhu et al.'s review makes clear, "promising" and "proven" remain separated by considerable engineering distance. The next few years will determine which 2D materials move from laboratory curiosity to commercial reality—and which, like so many materials before them, remain perpetual candidates for a future that never quite arrives.
Graphene was supposed to change everything. When Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov peeled single layers of carbon from graphite with adhesive tape in 2004—a feat that earned them the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics—the materials science community anticipated rapid commercial transformation. Two decades later, graphene has delivered on some promises (composite materials, thermal management, sensors) while falling short on others (flexible electronics at scale, semiconductor replacements). But graphene's most lasting contribution may be conceptual rather than commercial: it proved that atomically thin materials possess properties their bulk counterparts do not, and it launched a global search for the hundreds of other two-dimensional materials that theory predicts should exist. A 2025 review by Zhu et al. in Small Methods examines a critical bottleneck in that search—how to actually make these materials at scale—and argues that electrochemistry offers the most promising path forward.
The Research Landscape
The 2D Materials Zoo
Beyond graphene, the family of two-dimensional materials is vast and varied, encompassing semiconductors with tunable band gaps, metallic conductors with hydrophilic surfaces, atomically smooth insulators, and materials whose electronic properties change with layer thickness. The theoretical catalog runs to thousands of potential compounds, each with distinct characteristics that could serve applications from transistors to energy storage.
The problem is production. The scotch-tape method that launched the field is elegant but not scalable. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) produces high-quality films but requires expensive equipment, high temperatures, and carefully controlled substrates. Liquid-phase exfoliation—ultrasonicating bulk crystals in solvents—scales better but offers limited control over layer number and lateral dimensions. Each 2D material has its own chemistry, and techniques that work for graphene often fail for structurally different materials.
Electrochemistry as Universal Toolbox
Zhu et al. (2025) make the case that electrochemical methods offer a uniquely versatile toolkit for 2D material production. Their review covers four principal techniques: intercalation-exfoliation, electrochemical deposition, electrochemical etching, and topotactic transformation. What unites these approaches is the use of applied voltage to drive chemical processes at controlled rates—offering a degree of precision that purely chemical or mechanical methods lack.
Intercalation-exfoliation is perhaps the most intuitive approach. Ions are electrochemically driven between the layers of a bulk layered crystal, expanding the interlayer spacing until the layers separate. The technique has been demonstrated for TMDs, other layered compounds, and various layered oxides. The key advantage over chemical intercalation is control: by tuning the applied potential and current, researchers can regulate the degree of intercalation and, consequently, the thickness and quality of the resulting nanosheets.
Electrochemical deposition takes the opposite approach, building 2D materials layer by layer on a substrate from dissolved precursors. This bottom-up method can produce films with controlled thickness and composition but is typically limited to materials that can be deposited from solution—primarily metal oxides, hydroxides, and sulfides.
Electrochemical etching selectively removes components from a bulk material to create a 2D structure. By applying controlled potentials, specific layers within a layered precursor can be dissolved while preserving the remaining 2D sheets. This approach can avoid the use of harsh chemical etchants, offering a safer and potentially more controllable alternative for producing certain 2D materials at scale.
Topotactic transformation—electrochemically converting one crystal structure into another while preserving the overall morphology—is the least established but potentially most creative approach. It enables access to 2D materials that cannot be easily exfoliated from naturally layered precursors, expanding the accessible portion of the theoretical 2D materials catalog.
Applications Driving Demand
The review highlights three application domains where 2D materials beyond graphene show particular promise. In batteries and supercapacitors, 2D carbide/nitrides and TMDs offer high surface areas, good conductivity, and fast ion transport—properties that translate to high power density and rapid charge-discharge cycles. In electrocatalysis, the abundant active edge sites of 2D materials make them efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution, oxygen reduction, and CO₂ conversion. In electronics, semiconducting TMDs with tunable band gaps could enable transistors, photodetectors, and light-emitting devices at the ultimate thickness limit.
Critical Analysis
Zhu et al. provide a thorough technical overview, but several important caveats deserve emphasis.
<
| # | Claim | Source | Hedging |
|---|
| 1 | Electrochemical methods enable scalable production of diverse 2D materials with precise surface property control | Zhu et al., 2025 | Demonstrated at laboratory scale; industrial-scale validation remains limited |
| 2 | Four electrochemical techniques (intercalation-exfoliation, deposition, etching, topotactic transformation) constitute a versatile production toolkit | Zhu et al., 2025 | Comprehensiveness is a review framing; not all techniques work equally well for all materials |
| 3 | Applications in batteries, electrocatalysis, and electronics benefit from the unique properties of electrochemically produced 2D materials | Zhu et al., 2025 | Application potential demonstrated; commercial products from non-graphene 2D materials remain scarce |
The gap between laboratory demonstrations and commercial production remains substantial. Most electrochemical 2D material production has been demonstrated at milligram to gram scales. Whether these methods can produce kilograms or tons—the quantities needed for battery electrodes or catalyst coatings—is an open engineering question. The review acknowledges remaining challenges but could have benefited from a more explicit analysis of the techno-economic barriers to scale-up.
Open Questions
- Defect control: Electrochemical processing inevitably introduces defects. For electronic applications requiring pristine crystal quality, can electrochemical methods compete with CVD?
- Standardization: The field lacks standardized protocols for characterizing 2D material quality (layer number distribution, lateral size, defect density). How will this be resolved as the field matures?
- Environmental assessment: Are electrochemical methods genuinely greener than chemical alternatives when accounting for electrolyte sourcing, energy consumption, and waste treatment?
- Material stability: Many 2D materials degrade in ambient conditions (other layered compounds oxidizes in air within hours). Can electrochemical surface modification improve environmental stability?
- Integration: How will 2D materials be integrated into existing manufacturing workflows for batteries, electronics, and catalysts?
Looking Forward
The story of 2D materials is entering its second act. The first act—dominated by graphene—established the scientific foundations and generated enormous excitement. The second act is quieter and more technically demanding: turning a family of hundreds of theoretically predicted materials into practically useful products. Electrochemistry, with its inherent controllability and scalability potential, appears well positioned to be the enabling production technology for this transition. But as Zhu et al.'s review makes clear, "promising" and "proven" remain separated by considerable engineering distance. The next few years will determine which 2D materials move from laboratory curiosity to commercial reality—and which, like so many materials before them, remain perpetual candidates for a future that never quite arrives.