Synthesis of reduced graphene oxide paper for EMI shielding by a multi-step process

Abstract

A multi-step reduction process was developed to produce reduced graphene oxide (rGO) paper for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. First step reduction was achieved by hydroiodic acid to remove most of the oxygen-containing functional groups, and sodium borohydride was used in the second step reduction to reduce carbonyl group which is the most difficult functional group to remove. In the last step reduction, hydroiodic acid was used as reducing agent again to remove the remaining oxygen-containing functional groups. The results show that this method can greatly improve the conductivity and EMI shielding performance of rGO paper. The resulting rGO paper with a C/O ratio of 19.38 and a thickness of 9.1[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m exhibited high conductivity of 1084[Formula: see text]S/cm and excellent average EMI shielding efficiency of 45.84[Formula: see text]dB in the X-band, better than that reduction by other chemical methods.