Facile synthesis of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets by a sodium diphenylamine sulfonate reduction process and its electrochemical property.

We report a new method to convert graphene oxide (GO) to stable colloidal dispersion of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets (RGONS) using sodium diphenylamine sulfonate (SDAS) as a reductant, as well as itself and its redox product as the stabilizer. The as-prepared RGONS have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, thermo-gravimetric analysis, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The results indicate that the bulk of oxygen-containing functional groups from GO have been removed. Based on the cyclic voltammogram (CV) analyses, it is found that the RGONS-based material exhibits better electrochemical activity in sensing ascorbic acid than GO. The simple method provides a new efficient route for the synthesis of water-soluble RGONS on a large scale and novel composites.