Simultaneous electrochemical-assisted exfoliation and in situ surface functionalization towards large-scale production of few-layer graphene

Abstract

Functionalized graphene manufacturing usually consists of two consecutive steps of graphene production and functionalization, which are mainly accompanied with several reaction routes and waste generation. Herein, we demonstrated a facile one-step method for the simultaneous exfoliation of graphite and surface functionalization of the resulting graphene using electrochemical approach. We showed that presence of a water soluble acrylate monomer e.g., n-butyl acrylate in an ammonium sulphate electrolyte solution can functionalize graphene through in situ polymerized n-butyl acrylate monomers during electrochemical exfoliation. Overall yield for electrochemically synthesized and functionalized graphene nanosheets was ~25% with respect to as-received natural graphite, which contain at least 80% few-layer nanosheets with a thickness less than 7 nm. It was found that these electrochemically produced and functionalized nanosheets can serve as a potential reinforcing agent in fabrication of thermoset and thermoplastic-elastomer polymer nanocomposites with enhanced mechanical performance.