Researchers have performed many methods to fabricate graphene, including physical exfoliation, epitaxial growth, solvothermal synthesis, chemical vapor deposition and unzipping multiwalled carbon nanotubes. However, these methods suffer from disadvantages. The expensive equipment or a low yield seriously limits the applications of graphene materials in industry. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with a high yield and a low cost has attracted attention. Conventional reduction methods include thermal reduction and chemical reduction. In our research group, we converted microwave-irradiated GO to graphene by magnesiothermic reaction with high C/O ratio up to 165.7. However, the yield of this method is around 30% due to a large burn-off during the microwave irradiation. The obtained rGO delivers a BET surface area of only 249.9 m2/g, much below the theoretical value of 2630 m2/g.Herein, we present a new method in order to increase the surface area and yield of magnesiothermic reduction of graphene oxide. Generally speaking, GO film was mixed with Ca(HCO3)2 to form GO/ CaCO3 composite, during the magnesiothermic reduction, the CO2 released from the CaCO3 will act as the foaming agent to prevent the newly formed graphene sheet from agglomerating. The surface area increases from 249.9 m2/g to 603 m2/g. Moreover, without the burning step by the microwave irradiation, the yield rocked up from 30% to 85%, which shows promising potential application in the commercial and industry field.  . (a),(b). SEM image of the rGO  (c),(d). TEM image of the rGO

Scalable fabrication of high surface area graphene from GOby magnesiothermic reaction

248th National Meeting (2014)

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