Large-scale preparation of graphene by Red-Al reduction under high gravity technology for supercapacitor application

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore a facile, rapid and scalable method for the exfoliation and reduction of graphene oxide (GO). In this work, the GO was reduced within 30 min using Red Al as a reductant in a high-gravity rotating packed bed (RPB) reactor. As a result of the process intensification by high gravity technology, the reduced graphene oxide obtained by RPB (RPB-RGO) has a better exfoliation degree and higher C/O (8.00) than that obtained in stirred tank reactor (STR). The RPB-RGO can be dispersed in organic solvent especially in ACN, THF, EtOH and IPA, and remained stable for a week. Furthermore, using the RPB-RGO as electrode material in a supercapacitor cell, specific capacitance value as high as 78 F/g has been demonstrated as compared to 69 F/g of STR-RGO. This work puts forward a novel method for fast and scalable production of graphene for supercapacitor application.