Effects of graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide on the energy storage capacity of a short-chain dyad. A comparative study with the pristine dyad

Abstract

Steady state and time resolved spectroscopic investigations on a pristine short-chain dyad (E)-(((9H-fluorene-2-yl)imino)methyl)-N,Ndimethylaniline (NNDMBF) and its nanocomposite forms with Graphene oxide (GO) as well as reduced Graphene oxide (RGO) were made in order to develop efficient light energy converters. To the best of our knowledge, it appears to be the first time when by using the techniques of fluorescence lifetimes along with femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopic measurements it has been demonstrated that graphene nanocomposite dyads could form much larger charge-separated yield (φR∼ 0.28) coupled with slower energy wasting charge recombination rate processes (kCR ∼ 109s−1) relative to the pristine dyad (φR ∼ 0.02, kCR ∼ 1011s−1). This shows GO (and also RGO) plays significant role in designing stable light energy converter as well as light or energy storage devices when combined with the pristine dyad.