Synthesis and Analysis of Carbon-transition Metal Oxide Composites

Abstract

Graphene, a two-dimensional honeycomb structure of carbon due to its high electrical and thermal conductivity, and high specific surface area, is an excellent candidate for nano-electronics and energy storage. However, it is very difficult and expensive to produce a single layered graphene by the traditional method of mechanical exfoliation of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). It is mainly manufactured by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or more economically by chemical exfoliation of graphite by Hummer’s modified method. But there is a major disadvantage in using the chemical exfoliation, instead of forming single layer of pure graphene, a non-stoichiometric and insulating graphene oxide (GO) is formed. GO further needs to be reduced into graphene by either chemical or thermal method. In our work, we have synthesized and evaluated several compositions of transition metal oxides and carbon based materials. The structure and composition of materials are determined from diffraction and absorption experimental results. The diffraction techniques applied for characterization of carbon transitional metal oxides nanocomposites are selected area electron diffraction and powder x-ray diffraction. Absorption experiments used during experiments are Infrared absorption spectroscopy, UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (including X-ray absorption near edge structure and Extended X-ray absorption fine structure).