journal article·2025-07-01Open access

Low-temperature graphitization by amine-assisted combustion of graphite oxide

Olalekan Solomon Oluwole, Petar Jovanović, Shadhon Chandra Mohonta, Tuan Kien Nguyen, Phillip Aitchison, Nemai C. Karmakar, Mainak Majumder

Abstract

Scalable production of bulk graphene materials, by deoxygenation and partial graphitization of graphite oxide (GO), is considered the most mature pathway towards graphene-fortified products. We reimagined a combustion process in which a mixture of GO (the oxidant) and amino acid (high-energy fuel and reductant) undergoes solid-state reactions at relatively benign conditions (nominal temperature ~900 °C) to produce combusted reduced-graphite oxide (C-rGO) powders. The product is strewn with ordered and long graphene crystallites ( > 80 nm long), exhibits heavily graphitized (002) reflections in XRD and sharp selected area diffraction patterns, with a high C/O ratio ( > 18), and significant nitrogen doping (2.93 at%). We demonstrated that these inks can be printed into patterns on plastic substrates such as PET and roll-compressed to produce highly conductive thin films. Prototype chipless RFID tags were fabricated with a resonant microwave frequency of 3.986 GHz, capable of wireless reading from a distance of 28 mm.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Graphene research and applications · Graphite, nuclear technology, radiation studies · Fiber-reinforced polymer composites

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