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Updated: May 20, 2026
Scalable Syntheses of Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide using Cascade Design Oxidation and Highly Basic Reduction Reactions
Published on: July 3, 2025
An environmentally friendly and fast approach to prepare reduced graphite oxide with water and organic solvents
Jianchuan Wang1, Tiannan Zhou, Hua Deng
1College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
In this paper, reduced graphite oxide (RGO) was prepared using thiourea dioxide as reductant and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as stabilizer. Thiourea dioxide, a cheap and nontoxic industrialized material, was demonstrated to be an efficient reducing agent for graphite oxide (GO) in this paper. Ultraviolet and visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy results revealed that the reduction of GO could be readily achieved in 10 min, a reaction time which is much shorter than those required in common reduction reactions. The procedures of reduction including the by-products are all nontoxic, thus it is absolutely environmentally friendly. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that thiourea dioxide was successfully used to prepare RGO. Moreover, the stabilizer, PVP, which could be easily absorbed onto the surface of RGO, provided RGO with good water and organic solvents solubility, with low conductivity though. However, by controlling the content of PVP, RGO with balanced solubility and conductivity can be obtained. The resultant RGO could be used as nanofillers to prepare conductive materials and biomaterials with potential applications as electrical devices or biosensors.
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