Rapid, facile, and eco-friendly reduction of graphene oxide by electron beam irradiation in an alcohol–water solution

Abstract A rapid, facile, and eco-friendly electron beam (EB)-based method for the reduction of graphene oxide (GO) is demonstrated in this research. GO prepared by the well-known modified Hummer׳s method was dispersed in an ethanol/water solution, and then reduced by EB irradiation. The analytical results revealed that reduced GO (RGO) was successfully prepared by the EB irradiation of GO suspensions, and the chemical structure, thermal stability, and dispersibility of the resulting RGO depended on the absorbed dose. Noticeably, the prepared RGO exhibited an electrical conductivity of 1.50×10 −2 S/cm even at 50 kGy (5 min), which further increased up to 4.50 S/cm with an increase in the absorbed dose to 200 kGy (20 min). These results indicate that this fast and eco-friendly EB irradiation-induced reduction method can strongly support the mass production of RGO for practical applications.