I have tried a method, described below. However, the obtained product is still too large.
First, The GO solution(in water. 2mg/ml) was treated with a sonication process (200W; 3h); Then solution was centrifuged at low speed(8k rpm, 10min). Collected the supernatant and treated with higher speed(1.2k rpm, 10min). Collected the sediment.
Another method, reported in the attached protocol, deals with the PEGylated GO (Covalently conjugating GO with carboxyl groups to amine-terminated branched PEG (six-armed-PEG-NH2 for example), with the help of N-(3-dimethylaminopropyl-N′-ethylcarbodiimide) hydrochloride (EDC) as the catalyst).
By comparison, it seems that the PEGylation plays a critical role.
Could anyone explain the beneath reason ?how does the PEG work? Besides, does any other polymer could bring similar effect?
in the synthesis process of GO, when graphite is treated with KMnO4, put the beaker in ultrason.
Thank you ! It could be an efficient approach. However, I would prefer to use the boughten GO directly. I will accept your suggestion as a plan B. Thanks again!
I believe that you can use sonication. here is a link of a paper that the graphene was successfully was exfoliated and then mixed with Al using ball milling to fabricate a composite.
Effect of ball milling on graphene reinforced Al6061 composite fabricated by semi-solid sintering
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359836813007737
Seems that the PEGylated GO provides steric stabilization and this way suppresses reagregation processes. Should be possible with other means of stabilization too.
With the help of mechanical stirring and ultra-sonication the size of large graphene oxide sheets can be broken down to nanoscale upto 60 nm. For further information check this paper
Breakdown into nanoscale of graphene oxide: Confined hot spot atomic reduction and fragmentation
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep06735#f1
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