Tuning the nature of nitrogen atoms in N-containing reduced graphene oxide. (January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sandoval, Stefania; Kumar, Nitesh; Oro-Solé, Judith; Sundaresan, A.; Rao, C.N.R.; Fuertes, Amparo; Tobias, Gerard
• Is Part Of: Carbon. Volume 96(2016)
• Page Start: 594
• Page End: 602
• Publication Date: 2016-01
• Subjects: Carbon -- Periodicals; Carbone -- Périodiques; Koolstof; Toepassingen; Electronic journals; 546.681
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2015.09.085
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0008-6223

Abstract

Abstract: Physical and chemical properties of graphene can be tailored by nitrogen doping. As a consequence of the continuous race to achieve the highest possible amount of doping there is a growing tendency to assume that all N species are incorporated within the graphene lattice (doping). Here we show that this is not always the case and employ several complementary techniques that allow a proper assessment of the type of nitrogen present. The nature of the nitrogen atoms has been tuned by ammonolysis of graphene oxide in the range of 100 °C–800 °C. This allows us to expand the capabilities of the synthetic approach to afford not only N-doping (at high temperature) but also to introduce amine and amide moieties at 100 °C; the latter presenting a much higher dispersability in aqueous media than graphene oxide. Interestingly, the sample with the highest amount of nitrogen (14.7 wt. %) cannot be referred to as N-doped graphene since it also contains N-bearing aliphatic moieties.