High quality reduced graphene oxide through repairing with multi-layered graphene ball nanostructures

Abstract

We present a simple and up-scalable method to produce highly repaired graphene oxide with a large surface area, by introducing spherical multi-layered graphene balls with empty interiors. These graphene balls are prepared via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of Ni particles on the surface of the graphene oxides (GO). Transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy results reveal that defects in the GO surfaces are well repaired during the CVD process, with the help of nickel nanoparticles attached to the functional groups of the GO surface, further resulting in a high electrical conductivity of 18,620 S/m. In addition, the graphene balls on the GO surface effectively prevent restacking of the GO layers, thus providing a large surface area of 527 m(2)/g. Two electrode supercapacitor cells using this highly conductive graphene material demonstrate ideal electrical double layer capacitive behavior, due to the effective use of the outstanding electric conductivity and the large surface area.