A simple one-pot strategy for the synthesis of ternary reduced graphite oxide/SnO 2 /Au hybrid nanomaterials Jun Zhang, Xianghong Liu, Liwei Wang, Taili Yang, Xianzhi Guo, Shihua Wu, Shoumin Zhang, Shurong Wang * Department of Chemistry, TKL of Metal- and Molecule-Based Material Chemistry and Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (MOE), Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 30 September 2010 Accepted 15 April 2011 Available online 22 April 2011 ABSTRACT A simple, time-saving, and user-friendly one-pot strategy is demonstrated for the synthesis of a novel ternary reduced graphite oxide/SnO 2 /Au hybrid nanomaterials using exfoliated graphite oxide, SnCl 2 and HAuCl 4 as the staring materials. The synthesis process can be fin- ished within 2 h in a solution phase, without using any surfactant and toxic or harsh reagent such as hydrazine, which is highly efficient, cost-effective and can be easily scaled up for production. This easy one-pot procedure offers a new pathway to produce complex graphene-based hybrid nanomaterials, which would hold great promise for a variety of applications. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Graphene, known as ‘‘the thinnest material in our universe’’ with only one-atom thickness [1], has attracted tremendous attention from both experimental and theoretical perspec- tives since its discovery in 2004 [2–4]. Its unique features such as light weight, high surface area, high electron mobility and mechanical strength makes graphene highly promising for a wide range of applications such as supercapacitors, nanoelec- tronics, sensors, hydrogen storage and so forth [1–5]. Chemical reduction of exfoliated graphite oxide (GO) using reductant such as hydrazine is probably the most easy and popular method to obtain graphene [6–8]. GO can form well-dispersed aqueous colloids, even in the absence of stabilizers, due to electrostatic repulsion of the versatile oxygen-containing groups (OCGs) such as carboxylic acid, phenol, hydroxyl and epoxy groups distributed on the basal plane (Fig. 1a) [9–11]. Of particular interest is that the aqueous colloidal dispersion of GO can be used as the starting support material for fabricat- ing advanced graphene-based nanomaterials [9,12]. In recent years, the synthesis of graphene-based hybrid nanomaterials has sparked enormous research interest [5,12–15]. The hybridization of graphene or GO with a second component such as noble metals [13,16–21] or metal oxides [13,22–38] to obtain a binary composite, which combines the merits of the two materials, could provide superior properties over their single components in various applications. For in- stance, the graphene/SnO 2 composite holds great promise for Li-ion batteries and photocatalysis [33,35–38]. GO is insu- lating and it should be converted to conducting graphene be- fore practical uses. To obtain graphene-based hybrid nanomaterials, two methods are usually employed. One ap- proach is to first produce a GO-based composite, followed by conversion to graphene-based hybrids using chemical reduction (e.g., hydrazine). An alternative procedure is to first reduce exfoliated GO to graphene, which is then used as a support to load a second material. In this case, a surfactant stabilizer must be used to protect the graphene sheets from re-stacking, which may have a negative effect on the intrinsic properties of the materials [9]. While great success has been 0008-6223/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.carbon.2011.04.053 * Corresponding author: Fax: +86 22 2350 2458. E-mail address: wsr618@gmail.com (S. Wang). CARBON 49 (2011) 3538 – 3543 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/carbon