Synthesis of reduced graphene oxide-based hybrid compounds and investigation of their sensing behavior against some nitroaromatic explosives

Abstract

In the scope of this study, the usability of rGO-based hybrid materials obtained by using different Schiff bases in the detection of some nitroaromatic explosives was investigated. In the first step, synthesis of graphene oxide (GO) containing functional groups (-COOH, –OH etc.) was carried out by the oxidation of graphite via the modified Hummers' method. These functional groups were reduced by the hydrothermal method to obtain the reduced graphene oxide (rGO). In another step, rGO-Cl was obtained from rGO using SOCl2. The purpose of obtaining the rGO-Cl compound is to make the synthesis of hybrid compounds easier from the reaction of rGO-Cl and imine compounds (ER1-ER5). The hybrid materials (FB1-FB5) were successfully synthesized from the reaction of rGO-Cl and imine compounds. FT-IR, UV, FL, SEM, TEM and XRD methods were used to determine the structure of the synthesized materials. The sensing behavior of the synthesized hybrid materials towards some nitroaromatic explosives was investigated. The quenching effect of nitroaromatic explosives on the fluorescence of rGO-based hybrid materials was measured using the fluorimetric titrations. Although GO derivatives are generally sensitive to 2,4-dinitrophenol, it has been determined that the synthesized hybrid compounds are sensitive to different nitroaromatic explosives. The lowest LOD values of the materials were found as (FB1: 8.76 μM; nitrobenzene), (FB2: 16.35 μM; 4-nitrophenol), (FB3: 20.50 μM; picric acid), (FB4: 12.54 μM; 2,4- dinitrophenol) and (FB5: 8.64 μM; 4-nitrophenol), respectively.