Investigation of chemical reduction of graphene oxide with many reduced agents

Abstract

Graphene based on graphite oxide prepared by chemical reduction method is always interesting for scientists since the early days of discovery of graphene. Many different reducing agents are recommended, however every reducing agent is only active on one type of functional groups on the structure of graphene oxide. For studying clearly the reducing ability of the chemical reducing agent, this research has focused on investigating the possibility of 3 reducing agents such as N₂H₄, NaBH₄ and HI. Besides, polyethylene oxide is also used as modified agent to completely exfoliate of graphite oxide before continuing the reduction process. Based on spectral analysis methods such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopy, we have demonstrated the reduced ability of each agent, and strong reducing agent is HI. Exfoliated structure of MGO-PEG and graphene is demonstrated by means of X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning (SEM) and transmittance (TEM) electron microscopy. The thermal analysis methods such as TGA and DSC also contribute to clarify the role of each reducing agent. Finally, the four-probe method was used to determine the sheets resistance of the graphene film: RGO-HI (120 Ω/square), RGO-Na (1300 Ω/square) and RGO-Hz (1500 Ω/square). This study contributes to clarify the reducing ability of N2H4, NaBH4 and HI on the same kind of graphene oxide that has not yet been studied.