Fabrication of highly conductive graphene paper for supercapacitors with a one-step hydrothermal method

We present a facile one-step hydrothermal method for the fabrication of free-standing graphene paper using aqueous graphene oxide (GO) dispersion as the starting material. Notably, the method does not require the use of any additives for the reduction and preparation of the graphene paper. The resulting graphene paper exhibits a high degree of reduction, as confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, revealing a carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio of ∼7. The fabricated graphene paper also demonstrates excellent conductivity, with a measured value of ∼1900 S/m, and sheet resistance of around 100 Ω/sq. Furthermore, the energy storage capability of the graphene paper based electrode is evaluated, which shows a promising specific capacity of 249 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g in 1M H₂SO₄ as the ionic medium. Additionally, the electrode has also demonstrated remarkable energy density and power density values of 28.68 Wh/Kg and 455 W/Kg, respectively. Overall, the resulting graphene paper exhibits high conductivity and excellent electrochemical performance, making it a promising candidate for various energy storage applications.