The Morphology of Graphene and Reduced Graphene Oxide

Graphene oxide has emerged as a promising material with applications in energy storage devices and flexible electronics. Current mass manufacturing of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) remains under study due to production challenges and costs. This study investigates the morphological evolution of graphene oxide (GO) and rGO using atomic force microscopy. For this study, the surfaces of GO and rGO were evaluated for their roughness and large-scale features in areas of 20 × 20 μm and 10 × 10 μm. As GO undergoes reduction, the removal of oxygen-containing functional groups causes the layers to condense, thereby increasing the material's prominent features (wrinkles), which are nanoscale deformations or folds in the surface of the material. GO was reduced using four different methods: thermal, chemical, solar, and laser. The surfaces of the thermal and chemical materials were scanned before and after the reduction process to assess changes in their surface features and surface roughness. The solar and laser were only scanned after the reduction. The results demonstrate the potential application of reduced graphene oxide; however, reduction methods still have to be optimized for large-scale manufacturing.