An extensive case study on the dispersion parameters of HI-assisted reduced graphene oxide and its graphene oxide precursor

Katerina Anagnostou; Minas M Stylianakis; Grigoris Atsalakis; Dimitrios M Kosmidis; Athanasios Skouras; Ioannis J Stavrou; Konstantinos Petridis; Emmanuel Kymakis

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.040

An extensive case study on the dispersion parameters of HI-assisted reduced graphene oxide and its graphene oxide precursor

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 Nov 15:580:332-344. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.040. Epub 2020 Jul 11.

Authors

Katerina Anagnostou¹, Minas M Stylianakis², Grigoris Atsalakis³, Dimitrios M Kosmidis¹, Athanasios Skouras⁴, Ioannis J Stavrou⁵, Konstantinos Petridis⁶, Emmanuel Kymakis⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Heraklion 71410, Crete, Greece.
² Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Heraklion 71410, Crete, Greece. Electronic address: stylianakis@hmu.gr.
³ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Heraklion 71410, Crete, Greece; Chemistry Department, University of Crete, Voutes Campus, Heraklion 71003, Greece.
⁴ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Heraklion 71410, Crete, Greece; Department of Life Sciences, School of Sciences, European University Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus.
⁵ Department of Life Sciences, School of Sciences, European University Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus; Department of Chemistry, University of Cyprus, 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus.
⁶ Department of Electronic Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Chania 73132, Crete, Greece.
⁷ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Heraklion 71410, Crete, Greece. Electronic address: kymakis@hmu.gr.

PMID: 32688124
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.040

Abstract

The formation of highly concentrated and stable graphene derivatives dispersions remains a challenge towards their exploitation in various applications, including flexible optoelectronics, photovoltaics, 3D-printing, and biomedicine. Here, we demonstrate our extensive investigation on the dispersibility of graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) in 25 different solvents, without the use of any surfactant or stabilizer. Although there is a significant amount of work covering the general field, this is the first report on the dispersibility of: a) RGO prepared by a HI/AcOH assisted reduction process, the method which yields RGO of higher graphitization degree than the other well-known reductants met in the literature, b) both GO and RGO, explored in such a great range of solvents, with some of them not previously reported. In addition, through calculation of their Hansen Solubility Parameters (HSP), we confirmed their dispersibility behavior in each solvent, while we indirectly validated the most advanced graphitization degree of the studied RGO compared to other reported RGOs, since its HSPs exhibit the highest similarity with the respective ones of pure graphene. Finally, high concentrations of up to 189 μg mL^-1 for GO and ~ 87.5 μg mL^-1 for RGO were achieved, in deionized water and o-Dichlorobenzene respectively, followed by flakes size distribution and polydispersity indices estimation, through dynamic light scattering as a quality control of the effect of a solvent's nature on the dispersion behavior of these graphene-based materials.

Keywords: Dispersions; Graphene oxide; Hansen solubility parameters; Polydispersity index; Reduced graphene oxide.