High-yield production of nano-lateral size graphene oxide by high-power ultrasonication

• Autor(a) principal: Timochenco, L
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Costa-Almeida, R, Bogas, D, Silva, FALS, Silva, J, Pereira, A, Magalhães, FD, Pinto, AM
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/152478
• topic: Graphene; Graphene oxide; Nano-materials; Particle size; Stability; Standardization; Surface chemistry

Nanographene oxide (GOn) constitutes a nanomaterial of high value in the biomedical field. However, large scale production of highly stable aqueous dispersions of GOn is yet to be achieved. In this work, we explored high-power ultrasonication as a method to reduce particle size of GO and characterized the impact of the process on the physicochemical properties of the material. GOn was obtained with lateral dimensions of 99 ± 43 nm and surface charge of -39.9 ± 2.2 mV. High-power ultrasonication enabled an improvement of stability features, particularly by resulting in a decrease of the average particle size, as well as zeta potential, in comparison to GO obtained by low-power exfoliation and centrifugation (287 ± 139 nm; -29.7 ± 1.2 mV). Remarkably, GOn aqueous dispersions were stable for up to 6 months of shelf-time, with a global process yield of 74%. This novel method enabled the production of large volumes of highly concentrated (7.5 mg mL-1) GOn aqueous dispersions. Chemical characterization of GOn allowed the identification of characteristic oxygen functional groups, supporting high-power ultrasonication as a fast, efficient, and productive process for reducing GO lateral size, while maintaining the material’s chemical features.