The production of water-dispersed graphene with low defects remains a challenge. The dry ball milling of graphite with additives produces edge-selectively functionalized graphene. However, the "inert" additives require a long milling time and cause inevitable in-plane defects. Here, the mechanochemical reaction of graphite with persulfate solved the above drawback and produced edge-selectively hydroxylated graphene (EHG) nanosheets through a 2 h ball-milling and a subsequent 0.5 h sonication. The mechanochemical cleavage of persulfate yielded SO4 ⋅- to spontaneously oxidize graphite to form the carbon radical cations selectively at edges, followed by hydroxylation with water of moisture. Because the O-O bond dissociation energy of persulfate is 20 % of the graphitic C-C bond, the rather low milling energy allowed the hydroxylation of graphite at edges with nearly no in-plane defects. The obtained EHG showed high water-dispersibility and excellent photothermal and electrochemical properties, thereby opening up a new door to fabricate graphene-based composites.
Keywords: ball milling; carbon materials; graphene; green chemistry; mechanochemistry.
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