Control of water for high-yield and low-cost sustainable electrochemical synthesis of uniform monolayer graphene oxide

Jiaqi Guo, Songfeng Pei (), Kun Huang, Qing Zhang, Xizhong Zhou, Jinmeng Tong, Zhibo Liu, Hui-Ming Cheng and Wencai Ren ()
Additional contact information
Jiaqi Guo: 72 Wenhua Road
Songfeng Pei: 72 Wenhua Road
Kun Huang: 72 Wenhua Road
Qing Zhang: 72 Wenhua Road
Xizhong Zhou: 72 Wenhua Road
Jinmeng Tong: 72 Wenhua Road
Zhibo Liu: 72 Wenhua Road
Hui-Ming Cheng: 72 Wenhua Road
Wencai Ren: 72 Wenhua Road

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract With the rapid development of graphene industry, low-cost sustainable synthesis of monolayer graphene oxide (GO) has become more and more important for many applications such as water desalination, thermal management, energy storage and functional composites. Compared to the conventional chemical oxidation methods, water electrolytic oxidation of graphite-intercalation-compound (GIC) shows significant advantages in environmental-friendliness, safety and efficiency, but suffers from non-uniform oxidation, typically ~50 wt.% yield with ~50% monolayers. Here, we show that water-induced deintercalation of GIC is responsible for the non-uniform oxidation of the water electrolytic oxidation method. Using in-situ experiments, the control principles of water diffusion governing electrochemical oxidation and deintercalation of GIC are revealed. Based on these principles, a liquid membrane electrolysis method was developed to precisely control the water diffusion to achieve a dynamic equilibrium between oxidation and deintercalation, enabling industrial sustainable synthesis of uniform monolayer GO with a high yield (~180 wt.%) and a very low cost (~1/7 of Hummers’ methods). Moreover, this method allows precise control on the structure of GO and the synthesis of GO by using pure water. This work provides new insights into the role of water in electrochemical reaction of graphite and paves the way for the industrial applications of GO.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56121-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56121-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56121-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().