Synthesis and characterization of polymer grafted graphene oxide sheets using a Ce(IV)/HNO3 redox system in an aqueous solution

摘要

We provide here a simple way to synthesize polymer grafted graphene oxide (GO) sheets with intercalated or exfoliated structure by using a redox system with cerium (IV) ammonium nitrateitric acid and GO sheets' hydroxyl groups as the redox couple. Polystyrene, poly (methyl methacrylate) and polyacrylonitrile grafted GO sheets were synthesized in an aqueous solution by this redox-initiated free-radical polymerization strategy, and characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy. We investigated the effects of temperature and redox initiator's concentration on the grafting efficiency. It was found that when a small amount of polymer was grafted onto GO sheets, an intercalated layer structure was formed; while an exfoliated structure was formed with a large amount of polymer grafted.