Issue 3, 2023

One-pot carboxyl enrichment fosters water-dispersibility of reduced graphene oxide: a combined experimental and theoretical assessment

Abstract

Graphene, one of the allotropic forms of carbon, has attracted enormous interest in the last few years due to its unique properties. Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) is known as the nanomaterial most similar to graphene in terms of electronic, chemical, mechanical, and optical properties. It is prepared from graphene oxide (GO) in the presence of different types of reducing agents. Nevertheless, the application of RGO is still limited, owing to its tendency to irreversibly aggregate in an aqueous medium. Herein, we disclosed the preparation of water-dispersible RGO from GO previously enriched with additional carboxyl functional groups through a one-pot reaction, followed by chemical reduction. This novel and unprecedentedly reported reactivity of GO toward the acylating agent succinic anhydride (SA) was experimentally investigated through XPS, Raman, FT-IR, and UV-Vis, and corroborated by DFT calculations, which have shown a peculiar involvement in the functionalization reaction of both epoxide and hydroxyl functional groups. This proposed synthetic protocol avoids use of sodium cyanide, previously reported for carboxylation of graphene, and focuses on the sustainable and scalable preparation of a water-dispersible RGO, paving the way for its application in many fields where the colloidal stability in aqueous medium is required.

Graphical abstract: One-pot carboxyl enrichment fosters water-dispersibility of reduced graphene oxide: a combined experimental and theoretical assessment

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 11 2022
Accepted
09 1 2023
First published
17 1 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale Adv., 2023,5, 893-906

One-pot carboxyl enrichment fosters water-dispersibility of reduced graphene oxide: a combined experimental and theoretical assessment

F. Amato, A. Motta, L. Giaccari, R. Di Pasquale, F. A. Scaramuzzo, R. Zanoni and A. G. Marrani, Nanoscale Adv., 2023, 5, 893 DOI: 10.1039/D2NA00771A

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