Large-scale Production of Few-Layer Reduced Graphene Oxide by the Rapid Thermal Reduction of Graphene Oxide and Its Structural Characterization

Abstract

Graphene, a carbon allotrope, is a two-dimensional honeycomb of carbon atoms. Although graphene is a thin material, it is the strongest material known on Earth thanks to the strong carbon bonds in its structure. It is stated that the strength of these carbon bonds in graphene is about 100 times stronger than steel. In this study, graphite was first converted into graphene oxide (GO) by the Improved Hummers method, which is one of the methods suitable for large-scale production. Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) was obtained from the synthesized GOs by thermal reduction. TGA, FTIR, XRD, XPS, Raman, BET, and SEM analyses were used to characterize GO produced using the improved Hummers method and RGO reduced by thermal methods. TGA measurements show that RGO produced using the thermal approach had a lower mass loss than graphite oxidized using the improved Hummers process. This shows that the GO sample prepared using the improved Hummers approach contains a considerable number of distinct oxygen-containing groups. The novelty of the modified Hummers' method lies in its enhanced efficiency in producing graphene oxide through reduced thermal reaction times and improved scalability compared to the original approach in the literature. The C:O ratio of the GO and RGO samples was determined by XPS to be 1.88 and 11.17, respectively. The ID/IG ratio obtained by Raman analysis was 0.973. In addition, RGO's BET surface area was discovered to be 543.6 m2 g-1. These findings demonstrated that graphite was successfully oxidized by an improved Hummers method, and the resulting GO was thermally converted to few-layer RGO.