Synthesis of Graphene Oxide using Modified Hummer’s Method and its Reduction using Hydrazine Hydrate

Graphene is a hot area of research because of its unique and remarkable properties. These properties have invoked researchers to use this form of carbon in various potential applications. One of the bottlenecks in developing such application is mass production of graphene. Hummer’s Method is one of the easiest and economical methods to synthesize huge amount of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheets. Graphene Oxide (GO) was prepared from graphite powder using modified Hummer’s method, followed by reduction of exfoliated GO with hydrazine hydrate which resulted in formation of high surface area two dimensional structure consisting of RGO flakes and nanosheets. To obtain porous and layered structure of RGO, hydrothermal reduction was performed at an elevated temperature. The synthesized reduced GO was characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to investigate the morphological and physicochemical changes occurred in exfoliated graphite. In XRD results, it was found that 2θ= 26.4° peak with interplanar spacing (d002) of 0.335nm of graphite powder disappeared, while another significant peak observed at 2θ =11.95° with interplanar spacing of 0.754 nm demonstrated successful oxidation of graphite and formation of GO. A diffraction peak obtained at 2θ =22.5° clearly indicated that upon hydrothermal reduction, reduced GO flakes were formed. SEM results also support the formation of RGO since particle size lies in nanometric range (6-20 nm).