Preliminary Study of Graphite Rod Pre-treatment in H2O2/H2SO4 Mixture Solution on the Synthesized Graphene by Electrochemical Exfoliation Method

Abstract

Graphene is one of the materials that is widely studied as the anode of the lithium-ion battery. Electrochemical exfoliation is one of the eco-friendly and high scalability methods for graphene production that is suitable in industrial scale. However, the low yield issue needs to be addressed. Herein, we use a graphite rod electrode that pre-treated with H2SO4/H2O2 mix solution to generate higher yield and performance of graphene as the electrode material. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) showed that the oxidation of graphite during electrochemical exfoliation process increased with the increase of H2O2 concentration during the pretreatment process. The four-point probe and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) characterization shows the sample with pre-treatment using H2O2 of 5 vol % yield the highest conductivity of 1124 S/m and lowest Rct of 43.8 Ohm.