Experimental Investigation into a New Method of scalable production of Reduced Graphene Oxide for potential industrial graphene nanocomposite manufacture

Abstract

Graphene has attracted a great attention in the recent years of research innovations mainly due to its unique properties and in particular, its structural composition of one-atom thick sheet of hexagonally arrayed sp2 carbon atoms. This article focuses on a method of synthesis of graphene oxide granules, which can be use as nanofiller in polymer matrix. Polymer nanocomposites reinforced with graphene nanofillers have better mechanical, thermal and electrical properties than pure polymer materials. Some corrugated spherical structures/granules of reduced graphene oxide were produced by a dispersion/drying method. For this purpose the reduced graphene oxide suspension produced in the laboratory by an improved method was mixed on a magnetic stirring and delivered by a peristaltic pump to the granulation zone at a speed 10-20 ml/min. The granulation zone temperature was kept within 40-150°C. The suspension was dispersed by compressed air up to 3 atmospheres. The produced granules were accumulated in a receiver, and dried in the vacuum oven to remove residues of solvents used in the process. The engineered reduced Graphene oxide were analyzed and the material structural-morphology was characterized by XRD, TGA, UV, Raman and SEM.