Abstract:
In this work, we demonstrate that pristine graphite oxide (PGO), formed by the oxidation of graphite by the modified Hummers’ method, when still in synthetic mixture, can be re-intercalated by methanol, while keeping its c-axis registry. The as-formed structure contains two molecular layers of methanol, sandwiched between the neighboring graphene oxide (GO) sheets. The typical water-washed and dried GO intercalates only by one molecular layer of methanol. This finding suggests the route for preparing alcohol-intercalated GO straight from PGO, while bypassing water-purification, drying, and intercalating steps. The methanol-purified GO has significantly higher content of organic sulfates, compared to the typical water-purified sample. We stress one more time that the 1620 cm−1 and 1223 cm−1 absorption bands in the FTIR spectra of GO are originated by water molecules, and organic sulfates, respectively. The GO purification with methanol has some advantages over the currently used water-purification, and might become an attractive alternative to the latter.