Abstract
This chapter includes the synthesis of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and its applications in the field of energy. rGO has gained fame in the scientific community because it has properties similar to graphene and can be easily manufactured in large scale. rGO is synthesized by reduction of graphene oxide (GO) using simple and efficient techniques like thermal, chemical, electrochemical and hydrothermal. rGO is used as electrode, hole transport layer as well as an electron transport layer in organic solar cells. It is also used as counter electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells. Additionally, rGO serves as electrode material for supercapacitor devices exhibiting high specific capacitance and cyclic stability values.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Yang, Z., Ren, J., Zhang, Z., Chen, X., Guan, G., Qiu, L., Zhang, Y., Peng, H.: Recent advancement of nanostructured carbon for energy applications. Chem. Rev. 115, 5159–5223 (2015)
Bolotin, K.I., Sikes, K.J., Jiang, Z., Klima, M., Fudenberg, G., Hone, J., Kim, P., Stormer, H.L.: Ultrahigh electron mobility in suspended graphene. Solid State Commun. 146, 351–355 (2008)
Stoller, M.D., Park, S., Yanwu, Z., An, J., Ruoff, R.S.: Graphene-based ultracapacitors. Nano Lett. 8, 3498–3502 (2008)
Balandin, A.A., Ghosh, S., Bao, W., Calizo, I., Teweldebrhan, D., Miao, F., Lau, C.N.: Superior thermal conductivity of single-layer graphene. Nano Lett. 8, 902–907 (2008)
Brodie, B.C.: On the atomic weight of graphite. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London. 149, 249–259 (1859)
Staudenmaier, L.: Verfahren zur Darstellung der Graphitsäure. Ber. Der Dtsch. Chem. Gesellschaft. 32, 1394–1399 (1899)
Hummers, W.S., Offeman, R.E.: Preparation of graphitic oxide. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 80, 1339–1339 (1958)
Marcano, D.C., Kosynkin, D.V., Berlin, J.M., Sinitskii, A., Sun, Z., Slesarev, A., Alemany, L.B., Lu, W., Tour, J.M.: Improved synthesis of graphene oxide. ACS Nano 4, 4806–4814 (2010)
Higginbotham, A.L., Kosynkin, D.V., Sinitskii, A., Sun, Z., Tour, J.M.: Lower-defect graphene oxide nanoribbons from multiwalled carbon nanotubes. ACS Nano 4, 2059–2069 (2010)
McAllister, M.J., Li, J.-L., Adamson, D.H., Schniepp, H.C., Abdala, A.A., Liu, J., Herrera-Alonso, M., Milius, D.L., Car, R., Prud’homme, R.K., Aksay, I.A.: Single sheet functionalized graphene by oxidation and thermal expansion of graphite. Chem. Mater. 19, 4396–4404 (2007)
Becerril, H.A., Mao, J., Liu, Z., Stoltenberg, R.M., Bao, Z., Chen, Y.: Evaluation of solution-processed reduced graphene oxide films as transparent conductors. ACS Nano 2, 463–470 (2008)
Wang, X., Zhi, L., Müllen, K.: Transparent, conductive graphene electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells. Nano Lett. 8, 323–327 (2008)
Wu, Z.S., Ren, W., Gao, L., Liu, B., Jiang, C., Cheng, H.M.: Synthesis of high-quality graphene with a pre-determined number of layers. Carbon N. Y. 47, 493–499 (2009)
Li, X., Wang, H., Robinson, J.T., Sanchez, H., Diankov, G., Dai, H.: Simultaneous nitrogen doping and reduction of graphene oxide. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131, 15939–15944 (2009)
He, Q., Wu, S., Gao, S., Cao, X., Yin, Z., Li, H., Chen, P., Zhang, H.: Transparent, flexible, all-reduced graphene oxide thin film transistors. ACS Nano 5, 5038–5044 (2011)
Mattevi, C., Eda, G., Agnoli, S., Miller, S., Mkhoyan, K.A., Celik, O., Mastrogiovanni, D., Granozzi, G., Garfunkel, E., Chhowalla, M.: Evolution of electrical, chemical, and structural properties of transparent and conducting chemically derived graphene thin films. Adv. Funct. Mater. 19, 2577–2583 (2009)
Gómez-Navarro, C., Weitz, R.T., Bittner, A.M., Scolari, M., Mews, A., Burghard, M., Kern, K.: Electronic transport properties of individual chemically reduced graphene oxide sheets. Nano Lett. 7, 3499–3503 (2007)
Stankovich, S., Dikin, D.A., Piner, R.D., Kohlhaas, K.A., Kleinhammes, A., Jia, Y., Wu, Y., Nguyen, S.T., Ruoff, R.S.: Synthesis of graphene-based nanosheets via chemical reduction of exfoliated graphite oxide. Carbon 45, 1558–1565 (2007)
Stankovich, S., Dikin, D.A., Dommett, G.H.B., Kohlhaas, K.M., Zimney, E.J., Stach, E.A., Piner, R.D., Nguyen, S.B.T., Ruoff, R.S.: Graphene-based composite materials. Nature 442, 282–286 (2006)
Fernández-Merino, M.J., Guardia, L., Paredes, J.I., Villar-Rodil, S., SolÃs-Fernández, P., MartÃnez-Alonso, A., Tascón, J.M.D.: Vitamin C is an ideal substitute for hydrazine in the reduction of graphene oxide suspensions. J. Phys. Chem. C. 114, 6426–6432 (2010)
Chen, L., Tang, Y., Wang, K., Liu, C., Luo, S.: Direct electrodeposition of reduced graphene oxide on glassy carbon electrode and its electrochemical application. Electrochem. Commun. 13, 133–137 (2011)
Tong, H., Zhu, J., Chen, J., Han, Y., Yang, S., Ding, B., Zhang, X.: Electrochemical reduction of graphene oxide and its electrochemical capacitive performance. J. Solid State Electrochem. 17, 2857–2863 (2013)
Kar, T., Devivaraprasad, R., Singh, R.K., Bera, B., Neergat, M.: Reduction of graphene oxide – a comprehensive electrochemical investigation in alkaline and acidic electrolytes. RSC Adv. 4, 57781–57790 (2014)
Ramesha, G.K., Sampath, S.: Electrochemical reduction of oriented graphene oxide films: an in situ Raman spectroelectrochemical study. J. Phys. Chem. C. 113, 7985–7989 (2009)
Fu, C., Kuang, Y., Huang, Z., Wang, X., Du, N., Chen, J., Zhou, H.: Electrochemical co-reduction synthesis of graphene/Au nanocomposites in ionic liquid and their electrochemical activity. Chem. Phys. Lett. 499, 250–253 (2010)
Zhang, X., Zhang, D., Chen, Y., Sun, X., Ma, Y.: Electrochemical reduction of graphene oxide films: Preparation, characterization and their electrochemical properties. Chin. Sci. Bull. 57, 3045–3050 (2012)
Modeshia, D.R., Walton, R.I.: Solvothermal synthesis of perovskites and pyrochlores: crystallisation of functional oxides under mild conditions. Chem. Soc. Rev. 39, 4303 (2010)
Zheng, X., Peng, Y., Yang, Y., Chen, J., Tian, H., Cui, X., Zheng, W.: Hydrothermal reduction of graphene oxide; effect on surface-enhanced Raman scattering. J. Raman Spectrosc. 48, 97–103 (2017)
Park, H., Chang, S., Zhou, X., Kong, J., Palacios, T., Gradecak, S.: Flexible graphene electrode-based organic photovoltaics with record-high efficiency. ECS Trans. 69, 77–82 (2015)
Manzano-RamÃrez, A., López-Naranjo, E.J., Soboyejo, W., Meas-Vong, Y., Vilquin, B.: A review on the efficiency of graphene-based BHJ organic solar cells. J. Nanomater. (2015). https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/406597
Yin, Z., Sun, S., Salim, T., Wu, S., Huang, X., He, Q., Lam, Y.M., Zhang, H.: Organic photovoltaic devices using highly flexible reduced graphene oxide films as transparent electrodes. ACS Nano 4, 5263–5268 (2010)
Yin, Z., Wu, S., Zhou, X., Huang, X., Zhang, Q., Boey, F., Zhang, H.: Electrochemical deposition of ZnO nanorods on transparent reduced graphene oxide electrodes for hybrid solar cells. Small 6, 307–312 (2010)
Po, R., Carbonera, C., Bernardi, A., Camaioni, N.: The role of buffer layers in polymer solar cells. Energy Environ. Sci. 4, 285–310 (2011)
Cheng, X., Long, J., Wu, R., Huang, L., Tan, L., Chen, L., Chen, Y.: Fluorinated reduced graphene oxide as an efficient hole-transport layer for efficient and stable polymer solar cells. ACS Omega. 2, 2010–2016 (2017)
Yun, J.M., Yeo, J.S., Kim, J., Jeong, H.G., Kim, D.Y., Noh, Y.J., Kim, S.S., Ku, B.C., Na, S.I.: Solution-processable reduced graphene oxide as a novel alternative to PEDOT:PSS hole transport layers for highly efficient and stable polymer solar cells. Adv. Mater. 23, 4923–4928 (2011)
Jeon, Y.J., Yun, J.M., Kang, M., Lee, S., Jung, Y.S., Hwang, K., Heo, Y.J., Kim, J.E., Kang, R., Kim, D.Y.: 2D/2D vanadyl phosphate (VP) on reduced graphene oxide as a hole transporting layer for efficient organic solar cells. Org. Electron. Phys. Mater. Appl. 59, 92–98 (2018)
Brabec, C.J., Shaheen, S.E., Winder, C., Sariciftci, N.S., Denk, P.: Effect of LiF/metal electrodes on the performance of plastic solar cells. Appl. Phys. Lett. 80, 1288–1290 (2002)
Kim, J.Y., Kim, S.H., Lee, H.H., Lee, K., Ma, W., Gong, X., Heeger, A.J.: New architecture for high-efficiency polymer photovoltaic cells using solution-based titanium oxide as an optical spacer. Adv. Mater. 18, 572–576 (2006)
White, M.S., Olson, D.C., Shaheen, S.E., Kopidakis, N., Ginley, D.S.: Inverted bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaic device using a solution-derived ZnO underlayer. Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 143517 (2006)
Zhao, Y., Xie, Z., Qu, Y., Geng, Y., Wang, L.: Effects of thermal annealing on polymer photovoltaic cells with buffer layers and in situ formation of interfacial layer for enhancing power conversion efficiency. Synth. Met. 158, 908–911 (2008)
Mahmoudi, T., Wang, Y., Hahn, Y.B.: Graphene and its derivatives for solar cells application. Nano Energy. 47, 51–65 (2018)
Jayawardena, K.D.G.I., Rhodes, R., Gandhi, K.K., Prabhath, M.R.R., Dabera, G.D.M.R., Beliatis, M.J., Rozanski, L.J., Henley, S.J., Silva, S.R.P.: Solution processed reduced graphene oxide/metal oxide hybrid electron transport layers for highly efficient polymer solar cells. J. Mater. Chem. A. 1, 9922 (2013)
Woo Lee, H., Young, Oh., J., Il Lee, T., Soon Jang, W., Bum Yoo, Y., Sang Chae, S., Ho Park, J., Min Myoung, J., Moon Song, K., Koo Baik, H. : Highly efficient inverted polymer solar cells with reduced graphene-oxide-zinc-oxide nanocomposites buffer layer. Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 193903 (2013)
Sharma, K., Sharma, V., Sharma, S.S.: Dye-sensitized solar cells: fundamentals and current status. Nanoscale Res. Lett. 13, 1–46 (2018)
Yeh, M.H., Lin, L.Y., Chang, L.Y., Leu, Y.A., Cheng, W.Y., Lin, J.J., Ho, K.C.: Dye-sensitized solar cells with reduced graphene oxide as the counter electrode prepared by a green photothermal reduction process. ChemPhysChem 15, 1175–1181 (2014)
Zheng, H., Neo, C.Y., Mei, X., Qiu, J., Ouyang, J.: Reduced graphene oxide films fabricated by gel coating and their application as platinum-free counter electrodes of highly efficient iodide/triiodide dye-sensitized solar cells. J. Mater. Chem. 22, 14465 (2012)
Qiu, L., Zhang, H., Wang, W., Chen, Y., Wang, R.: Effects of hydrazine hydrate treatment on the performance of reduced graphene oxide film as counter electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells. Appl. Surf. Sci. 319, 339–343 (2014)
Jang, H.S., Yun, J.M., Kim, D.Y., Park, D.W., Na, S.I., Kim, S.S.: Moderately reduced graphene oxide as transparent counter electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells. Electrochim. Acta. 81, 301–307 (2012)
Xu, X., Huang, D., Cao, K., Wang, M., Zakeeruddin, S.M., Grätzel, M.: Electrochemically reduced graphene oxide multilayer films as efficient counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells. Sci. Rep. 3, 1489 (2013)
Yuliasari, F., Aprilia, A., Syakir, N., Safriani, L., Saragi, T., Risdiana, Hidayat, S., Bahtiar, A., Siregar, R., Fitrilawati: Characteristics of thermally reduced graphene oxide thin film as DSSC counter electrode. In: IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, vol. 196, 012049 (2017)
Zhao, C., Zheng, W.: A review for aqueous electrochemical supercapacitors. Front. Energy Res. 3 (2015). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2015.00023
Salanne, M.: Ionic liquids for supercapacitor applications. Top. Curr. Chem. 375, 63 (2017)
Johra, F.T., Jung, W.G.: Hydrothermally reduced graphene oxide as a supercapacitor. Appl. Surf. Sci. 357, 1911–1914 (2015)
Ambrosi, A., Pumera, M.: Electrochemically exfoliated graphene and graphene oxide for energy storage and electrochemistry applications. Chem. Eur. J. 22, 153–159 (2016)
Zhao, B., Liu, P., Jiang, Y., Pan, D., Tao, H., Song, J., Fang, T., Xu, W.: Supercapacitor performances of thermally reduced graphene oxide. J. Power Sourc. 198, 423–427 (2012)
Rajagopalan, B., Chung, J.S.: Reduced chemically modified graphene oxide for supercapacitor electrode. Nanoscale Res. Lett. 9, 535 (2014)
Chen, Y., Zhang, X., Zhang, D., Yu, P., Ma, Y.: High performance supercapacitors based on reduced graphene oxide in aqueous and ionic liquid electrolytes. Carbon N. Y. 49, 573–580 (2011)
Lei, Z., Lu, L., Zhao, X.S.: The electrocapacitive properties of graphene oxide reduced by urea. Energy Environ. Sci. 5, 6391–6399 (2012)
Zhang, L.L., Zhao, X., Stoller, M.D., Zhu, Y., Ji, H., Murali, S., Wu, Y., Perales, S., Clevenger, B., Ruoff, R.S.: Highly conductive and porous activated reduced graphene oxide films for high-power supercapacitors. Nano Lett. 12, 1806–1812 (2012)
Sahu, V., Shekhar, S., Sharma, R.K., Singh, G.: Ultrahigh performance supercapacitor from lacey reduced graphene oxide nanoribbons. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. 7, 3110–3116 (2015)
Iro, S.Z.: A brief review on electrode materials for supercapacitor. Int. J. Electrochem. Sci. 11, 10628–10643 (2016)
Ha, T., Kim, S.K., Choi, J.W., Chang, H., Jang, H.D.: pH controlled synthesis of porous graphene sphere and application to supercapacitors. Adv. Powder Technol. 30, 18–22 (2019)
Bai, Y., Rakhi, R.B., Chen, W., Alshareef, H.N.: Effect of pH-induced chemical modification of hydrothermally reduced graphene oxide on supercapacitor performance. J. Power Sourc. 233, 313–319 (2013)
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the UGC-DAE-CRS Indore (Project Ref: CRC-IC-MSR-07/CRS-215/2017-18/1296) and Dr. Ramdas Pai and Vasanthi Pai Endowment (Project Ref: SMU/ENDOW/2016-17/292/002) for providing Grant-in-Aid for Junior Research Fellowship to Ms. Sadhna Rai and Ms. Rabina Bhujel, respectively.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rai, S., Bhujel, R., Biswas, J., Swain, B.P. (2021). Reduced Graphene Oxide for Advanced Energy Applications. In: Swain, B.P. (eds) Nanostructured Materials and their Applications. Materials Horizons: From Nature to Nanomaterials. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8307-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8307-0_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-8306-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-8307-0
eBook Packages: Chemistry and Materials ScienceChemistry and Material Science (R0)