Investigation of the morphology and optical properties of graphene oxide for online diagnostics

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) particles have a wide and growing range of applications. They may also be converted to reduced graphene oxide (rGO) particles, which are increasingly used in energy storage devices like batteries and supercapacitors. However, the downstream functionality of GO and rGO particles depends strongly on their morphology, which is highly variable depending on the synthesis process. Here, we report morphological and optical properties for GO particles in the aerosol phase. These include the mobility diameter, effective density (0.93 ± 0.06 g/cm³), mass–mobility exponent (2.97 ± 0.06), Angstrom absorption exponent (2.48 between 370 nm and 950 nm), mass absorption cross-section (0.99 ± 0.22 m² g⁻¹), and mass scattering cross-section. Although this study reports measurements on re-aerosolized GO powder, the demonstrated techniques and measured properties serve as a foundation for in-reactor optical diagnostics that may allow for online control of the synthesis processes enabling the ability to control and characterize the functionality of downstream particles