Liquid Crystal Assisted Selective Separation of Large Graphene Oxide and its Size Dependent Oxygen Reduction Catalytic Effect

Abstract

We introduce a new self-separation of graphene oxide flakes exploiting liquid crystalline phase formation. Moderately concentrated discotic GO aqueous solution spontaneously phase separates into isotropic phase and nematic phase. According to Onsager theory, larger flakes with higher aspect ratio tends to form nematic phase, while smaller flakes remain in isotropic phase. Simple isolation of bottom nematic phase (large graphene oxide; LGO) resulted in the LGO dominant dispersion preparation. We employed this size selection principle to investigate the influence of GO flake size upon the material properties of reduced graphene oxide. The electrical properties of spin cast rGO films are thoroughly investigated in terms of the GO flake sizes in the precursor aqueous dispersions. Interestingly, nitrogen doping in order to inject more electron charge carrier exhibit different behavior following flake size. Therefore, it was experimentally confirmed that quaternary nitrogen doping site acts as the dominant catalytic site in oxygen reduction reaction.