High conductive rGO sheets fabricated by mild, low-cost and scalable plasma-triggered reduction-exfoliation of 3D aerogel-like graphene oxide

Abstract

The costs associated with the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) reduction process still limit its large-scale production from starting graphene oxide (GO) precursors. As a solution to these problems, we demonstrate a low-cost, chemical-free, fast (∼1 s), and low-temperature (∼140 °C) fabrication of 3D free-standing pure rGO aerogel structure using an electrical plasma-triggered reduction of a casted GO aerogel without destroying of its original 3D physical form. The reduction-exfoliation realized using a Diffuse Coplanar Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DCSBD) plasma source in atmospheric-pressure N2 results in an approximately 105 fold decrease in the GO aerogel resistivity and more than two orders increase of its specific surface area. The basic properties of the rGO thus produced were examined using XPS and SEM and compared with those obtained using a standard thermal reduction method. We believe that the method presented opens new opportunities for low-cost industrial-scale production of porous 3D and 2D rGO structures including their composites and hybrids with temperature-sensitive materials.