A fast chemical route for the synthesis of TBHQ functionalized reduced graphene oxide and its electrochemical performances Subhasis Rana, Pintu Sen * , S.K. Bandyopadhyay Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, 1/AF Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata 700064, India highlights graphical abstract  A fast chemical route has been adopted for the synthesis of TBHQ functionalized RGO.  The kinetics of chemical reduction becomes faster in the presence of TBHQ.  The FTIR spectrum of functionalized RGO supports the complete reduction process.  TBHQ also plays a vital role for enhancing capacitance of functional- ized RGO. article info Article history: Received 4 September 2015 Received in revised form 6 November 2015 Accepted 26 November 2015 Available online 11 December 2015 Keywords: Organic compounds Chemical synthesis Electrochemical techniques Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy abstract A fast chemical route for the synthesis of tertiary butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ) functionalized reduced graphene oxide (FRGO) and their application as high performance electrode materials for supercapacitors have been reported. Reductions of chemically exfoliated graphene oxides (GO) in the presence of small amount of TBHQ (1e2 wt % with respect to GO) at various time periods were investigated through XRD, FTIR and Raman studies. Reappearance of broad diffraction peak close to graphite peak (002) reveals an efficient method of reduction of different oxygen containing functional groups present in GO/FGO resulting in a decrease of interlayer d-spacing (~3.5 Å). Absence of the absorption peaks in FTIR for eC] O, t-OeH, epoxide and alkoxy groups supports the complete reduction of GO to FRGO by hydrazine hydrate within a short time period of 4 h reduction under reflux condition. A large red shift in UV spectrum of FRGO e 4 h (270 nm) reveals the complete reduction of graphene oxide. The average crystallite sp 2 domains sizes have been estimated through Raman spectroscopy. Plausible mechanism of TBHQ assisted fast chemical reduction of FGO has been enumerated. 1.5 wt % TBHQ in FRGO shows the best electrochemical performance where TBHQ not only acts as a reducing agent during functionaliza- tion, but also plays as an active redox molecule for enhanced capacitance of 200 F/g. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Energy is one of the most important topics concerned to the human society. In particular, it is a challenging task to our society to explore resources of clean and green energy in order to get rid of threat from global warming. Graphene is an emerging material in the resource of green energy (e.g. electrochemical cells, batteries etc) [1,2]. Chemically synthesised graphene known as reduced graphene Oxide (RGO), consists of a hexagonal ring-based carbon network, having mainly sp 2 -hybridized carbon atoms with partially sp 3 -hybridized carbon atoms containing different oxygen * Corresponding author. E-mail address: psen@vecc.gov.in (P. Sen). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Chemistry and Physics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matchemphys http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matchemphys.2015.11.045 0254-0584/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Materials Chemistry and Physics 169 (2016) 173e178