Synthesis and evaluation of reduced graphene oxide for supercapacitor application Mohammed Saquib Khan a , Rohit Yadav a , Rishi Vyas b , Atul Sharma a , M.K. Banerjee a , Kanupriya Sachdev a,⇑ a Malaviya Natinal Institute of Technolgy, JLN Marg, Jaipur, 302017, India b Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Jaipur, 302017, India article info Article history: Received 18 March 2020 Received in revised form 8 May 2020 Accepted 14 May 2020 Available online xxxx Keywords: Graphene Oxide Reduced Graphene Oxide Super capacitor Electrochemical Energy Storage Device Carbon nanomaterials abstract The paper reports synthesis of graphene oxide (GO) using modified Hummer’s method and its hydrother- mal assisted reduction to produce reduced graphene oxide (rGO) for supercapacitor applications. Synthesized GO and rGO were characterized using Raman spectroscopy and their I d /I g ratio was found to be 0.94 and 0.87, respectively. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was also performed on samples for detailed surface morphology information. UV-Vis spectroscopy was employed to investigate optical properties. FT-IR spectroscopy was utilized to get the information of attached functional groups and elec- trochemical characterization (cyclic voltammetry) was used to test the charging discharging behavior of the material. The specific capacitance of synthesized rGO was found to be 105F/g. Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer- ence on Advancement in Nanoelectronics and Communication Technologies. 1. Introduction Graphene is a two dimensional allotrope of carbon, in which carbon atoms are sp 2 hybridized and placed in a honeycomb lattice. Since the scotch-tape based separation of single layer graphene from graphite done by Novoselov et. al. [1], various other methods have emerged for the same. Among the various other popular methods, chemical exfoliation of graphite is most favor- able and widely used owing to its cost effectiveness and high yield [2]. Chemical exfoliation of graphite to produce graphite oxide was first introduced by William S. Hummers and Richard E. Offeman in the year 1958 [3]. Since then, many researcher have made various modifications according to their requirement to the original method [4–6]. Wet chemical exfoliation comprises two crucial steps: (i) chemically driven oxidation of graphite layer and slicing the stacked layer structure of graphite oxide to form graphene oxide (ii) Reduction of the as synthesized graphene oxide to remove the hydroxyl, carboxyl and epoxy groups from the struc- ture to get reduced graphene oxide [3,7–9]. The reduction step usually involves use of very toxic and environment polluting agents like hydrazine hydrate, hydroquinone compounds, sulphur compounds, etc. [10]. High temperature treatment of GO in the presence of hydrogen gas is the most effective method to com- pletely remove nearly all kinds of functional groups from the sur- face of graphene oxide, but the restacking of graphene sheets at high temperatures and scalability of the process is the major issue [10,11]. The exponential increase in the demand of the electrochemical energy storage devices (EESD) draws the attention towards the search for materials which are of low cost, have high energy den- sity, high power density and do not put the environment at stake. In the past two decades, graphene has proven to be a strong candi- date in electrochemical energy storage devices (EESD) application owing to its large surface area to volume ratio, higher electrical conductivity, greater chemical stabilities in basic as well as acidic mediums, industrial feasibility, and much more [12,13]. Superca- pacitors (SC), also called as ultra-capacitors (UC) or electrochemi- cal capacitors (EC) are well known for their higher power densities (PD), less weight, enhanced cyclic stability, minimal safety issues, and lower maintenance in comparison to batteries. The main quality of carbon material to be considered as a good candidate for supercapacitor application is high surface area. As the surface area of the capacitor is directly proportional to the charge storage, scientists worldwide are investigating ways to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.403 2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Advancement in Nanoelectronics and Communication Technologies. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: ksachdev.phy@mnit.ac.in (K. Sachdev). Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr Please cite this article as: M. S. Khan, R. Yadav, R. Vyas et al., Synthesis and evaluation of reduced graphene oxide for supercapacitor application, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.403