Probable Cause for the Superconductor‐like Properties of Alkane-wetted Graphite and Single-layer Graphene Above Room Temperature Under Ambient Pressure

Recently Kawashima has reported that, when wetted with alkanes, several forms of graphite and single‐layer graphene exhibit superconductor‐like properties above room temperature under ambient pressure [AIP Adv. 2013, 3, 052132; arXiv:1612.05294; arXiv:1801.09376]. Under the assumption that these seemingly unlikely properties arise from the presence of paired electrons brought about by the

alkane‐wetting, we explored their implications to arrive at a probable mechanism for strong electronpairing

driven by Fermi surface nesting and acoustic phonon. This mechanism explains why alkane‐wetting is essential for the graphene systems to become “superconductor‐like” above room temperature and why the “Tc” of alkane‐wetted pitch‐based graphite fibers increases almost linearly from ~363 to ~504 K with increasing the molecular weight of alkane from heptane to hexadecane. It also provides a number of

experimentally‐verifiable predictions, the confirmation of which will provide a strong support for the superconductivity driven by Fermi surface nesting and acoustic phonon.