Department of Materials Science & Engineering, National University of Singapore , Singapore 117576, Singapore.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2015 Dec 9;7(48):26952-8. doi: 10.1021/acsami.5b07757. Epub 2015 Nov 25.
Graphene is considered to be one of the most interesting materials because of its unique two-dimensional structure and properties. However, commercialization and large-scale production of graphene still face great challenges at the moment. Thermal reduction of graphene oxide (GO) can be an effective method to fabricate graphene in large scale, but the need for inert gas protection and high reaction temperature leads to high cost of production, thus limiting the production capacity of graphene. In this paper, for the first time we report a facile, safe, and scalable method to achieve simultaneous thermal reduction and nitrogen doping of GO in air at much lower reaction temperature while upholding a high-quality end product. The reduction and nitrogen doping of GO are evidenced by ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The nitrogen-doped reduced GO (NrGO) fabricated via this method has a high carbon/oxygen ratio of 15 and a nitrogen content of 11.87 atom %. The NrGO is also investigated by applying it as an electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction. As a result, the catalytic activity has presented itself as much higher than that of the undoped rGO.
石墨烯因其独特的二维结构和性质而被认为是最有趣的材料之一。然而，石墨烯的商业化和大规模生产目前仍面临巨大挑战。氧化石墨烯（GO）的热还原可以是大规模制备石墨烯的有效方法，但惰性气体保护和高反应温度的需求导致生产成本高，从而限制了石墨烯的生产能力。在本文中，我们首次报道了一种简便、安全且可扩展的方法，可在空气、更低的反应温度下同时实现 GO 的热还原和氮掺杂，同时保持高质量的最终产物。GO 的还原和掺杂通过紫外-可见吸收光谱、X 射线衍射、拉曼光谱、傅里叶变换红外光谱和 X 射线光电子能谱得到证实。通过这种方法制备的氮掺杂还原氧化石墨烯（NrGO）具有 15 的高碳/氧比和 11.87 原子%的氮含量。NrGO 还被用作氧还原反应的电催化剂进行了研究。结果表明，其催化活性明显高于未掺杂的 rGO。
