RADIO FREQUENCY HEATING AND REDUCTION OF GRAPHENE OXIDE AND GRAPHENE OXIDE – POLYVINYL ALCOHOL COMPOSITES
Abstract
Graphene oxide (GO) is one of the most frequently-used graphene-family materials, but it must often be reduced in order to restore electrical conductivity for the target applications. We have demonstrated the use of non-contact fringing field RF applicators to rapidly heat and reduce GO, both in its neat form and inside a polymer matrix like polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). For this study, GO and GO-PVA films were prepared by the vacuum filtration method. The results demonstrate quick non-contact heating of GO and GO-PVA composite films by application of RF fields. Heating rates as high as 10.9 °C/s and 1.5 °C/s have been observed for GO and GO-PVA, respectively. RF-reduced GO and GO-PVA samples have shown a reasonable conductivities of 10^2 S/m and 10^-1 S/m, respectively. In addition, C/O ratio has increased from 2.44 to 5.22 when GO is exposed to RF waves which confirm that GO samples are reduced by the RF treatment. Unlike time-consuming or hazardous conventional reduction methods, RF resistively heats GO with electric fields in seconds to form reduced GO.
Citation
Debnath, Debopamaa (2020). RADIO FREQUENCY HEATING AND REDUCTION OF GRAPHENE OXIDE AND GRAPHENE OXIDE – POLYVINYL ALCOHOL COMPOSITES. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /192245.