Impact of high temperature thermal reduction on microstructure, crystallinity and surface topography of reduced graphene oxide

The reduction of graphene oxide (GO), which was made via an electrochemical exfoliation, subjected to heat treatment, which resulted in the production of graphene thin films having a very low concentration of oxygen-containing functional groups. Electrochemistry, an innovative approach which provides us a better way to develop graphene and graphene oxide by using graphite electrode in an acidic solution of electrolytes. In present work, the GO has been synthesized via Tour’s method, cost-effective, less hazardous, nontoxic, environmental friendly, and more efficient method for graphite oxidation than that prepared by other conventional routes of GO Synthesis like Hummers’ method created by Hummers and Offeman. Thereafter, the GO has been reduced via a green, easier, safer thermal treatment approach at a temperature of 700 °C for a period of one hour inside the muffle furnace. The effects of heat treatment temperature on the microstructure, crystallinity, and surface topography of reduced graphene oxide (rGO), as well as on reduction of the oxygen-containing functional groups of the rGO, were examined by the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).