Graphene Oxide as a Novel NanoPlatform for Direct Hybridization of Graphene-SnO2

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) has been of particular interest because it provides unique properties due to its high surface area, chemical functionality and ease of mass production. GO is produced by chemical exfoliation of graphite and is decorated with oxygen-containing groups such as phenol hydroxyl, epoxide groups and ionizable carboxylic acid groups. Due to the presence of those functional groups, GO can be utilized as a novel platform for hybrid nanocomposites in chemical synthetic approaches. In this work, GO-$SnO_2$ nanocomposites have been prepared through the spontaneous formation of molecular hybrids. When $SnO_2$ precursor solution and GO suspension were simply mixed, $Sn^{2+}$ was spontaneously formed into $SnO_2$ nanoparticles upon the deoxygenation of GO. Through further chemical reduction by adding hydrazine, reduced GO-$SnO_2$ hybrid was finally created. Our investigation for the electrocapacitive properties of hybrid electrode showed the enhanced performance (389 F/g), compared with rGO-only electrode (241 F/g). Our approach offers a scalable, robust synthetic route to prepare graphene-based nanocomposites for supercapacitor electrode via spontaneous hybridization.