CVD Graphene on Iron, Iron Alloys, and Nanoparticles: A Review of Its Growth, Characterization, Applications, and Challenges

• • Iron substrates reduce material cost by over 80% compared to copper ($8–10/kg), enabling direct integration with steel infrastructure and eliminating transfer-induced defects, which is critical for scalable production of corrosion-resistant coatings and structural electronics. • • Growth temperatures for CVD graphene on iron are reduced to 500–1000 °C, compared to typical >1000 °C on copper, lowering energy consumption and enabling compatibility with temperature-sensitive steel alloys, as demonstrated in recent studies (Fickl et al., 2026). • • Alloying iron with elements such as Cr, Mn, Mo, Ni, Cu, and Co tunes carbon solubility and growth window, allowing precise control over layer uniformity—from monolayer to few-layer—essential for optimizing barrier properties and electronic performance. • • Iron nanoparticles enable core-shell Fe@graphene structures that combine iron core stability with carbon shell electrical properties, yielding materials suitable for electromagnetic interference shielding, energy storage, and water remediation, with performance metrics validated in applications like EMI shielding and catalysis.