Fast Synthesis of Highly Oxidized Graphene Oxide

Graphene oxide (GO) is an important material used as precursor for the synthesis of graphene, its derivatives and various graphene based composite materials. In this paper we would like to demonstrate that highly-oxidized graphene oxide can be prepared much faster and, moreover, it has almost identical chemical composition compared to the previously published and currently broadly used standard procedures. We prepared two samples: one using the usual Tour's method and the other one using the novel method. The main advantage of this improved method is the shorter synthesis time which can be reduced six times allowing scaling and speeding up of large scale production. Oxidation shortening also led to reduction of defect concentration. Both graphene oxides were characterized in detail showing almost identical structure as well as chemical composition and concentration of oxygen functionalities typical for graphene oxide prepared by permanganate methods. In addition the sorption capacity towards heavy metals (zinc, cadmium and lead) was also studied showing a comparable sorption capacity with standard graphene oxide prepared by Tour method. Graphene oxide prepared by rapid oxidation can form mechanically stable transparent membranes. Our developed method of graphene oxide synthesis is time-efficient, cost-efficient and can help to introduce graphene oxide to industrial scale production.