Single process of pulsed wire discharge for defect healing and reduction of graphene oxide

The defect healing and reduction of graphene oxide (GO) is a key determinant for expanding the commercial applications of the GO. This paper presents an efficient and defect healing reduction method through pulsed wire discharge (PWD) process in the GO dispersed solution in an organic solvent. The energy generated during the electric explosion allows the organic solvent to serve as a carbon precursor for simultaneous reduction and defect healing within one process. To investigate the reduction efficiency of solution-based PWD method and property changes due to structural recovery, two different conductive media such as copper wire and carbon fiber were used for explosion control. The copper wire acted as a very efficient conducting medium for the reduction of GO result in very low oxygen content of less than 1% in the GO after reduction, while the carbon fiber produced non-metal contaminated reduced graphene oxide (rGO), exhibiting excellent electrical conductivity. Electrical conductivity results of the prepared rGO powder revealed that, under the same density conditions of 0.5 g/cc, carbon fiber exhibited higher conductivity (2057.6 S/m).