Formation Process of Graphene Nano Sheets
Herlince Sihotang
1
, Rikson Siburian
1,2*
, Crystina Simanjuntak
3
, Saur Lumban Raja
1
, Minto Supeno
1
,
Vivi Sukmawati
1
and Zul Alfian
1
1
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara,
Jl. Bioteknologi No. 1, Medan 20155, Indonesia
2
Nano Medicine Center, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia
3
Postgraduate Chemistry Study Program, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara,
Jl. Bioteknologi No. 1 Kampus USU, Medan, Indonesia
Keywords: Graphene Nano Sheets, Magnesium, Epoxide, FTIR, Hummer Method.
Abstract: Formation process of Graphene Nano Sheets (GNS) was described in this paper. The aims of this paper are
to synthesize of GNS and to propose formation process of GNS base on magnesium (Mg) as a reductor
agent. This research is an experiment laboratory research. The modification of Hummer’s method was
chosen to generate GNS. Then, GNS was characterized with FTIR. The results data show that Mg may be
used to reduce epoxide functional groups.
1 INTRODUCTION
Graphene may be applied to many applications
(Geim, 2007; Xu, 2015; Novoselov, 2004; Terrones,
2010; Soldano, 2010). Unfortunately, it cannot be
produced naturally. It is possible to synthesize base
on graphite as a raw material (Choi, 2011; Bhuyan,
2016; Lee, 2016). Generally, GNS may be
synthesized by using CVD (Wang, 2009; Juang,
2010; Bárcenas, 2018; Jacobberger, 2015) and
chemical method (Siburian, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017;
Ratih, 2018; Supeno, 2018; Sebayang, 2018). GNS
may be generated with facile method. Commonly,
chemical method in term of producing graphene uses
graphite as a raw material (Bhuyan, 2016; Eigler,
2013; Saleem, 2018; Dimiev, 2014). Chemically
method may be expected to large scale graphene
production (Kairi, 2018; Li, 2014; Zhong, 2015;
Parvez, 2015; Park, 2009), and exfoliated graphite
(Gao, 2017). The commercialization of graphene
and its derivatives product will be visible if it may
produce on low cost, best quality, large scale and
green material (Tatarova, 2017; Zhong, 2015).
Therefore, in this paper the formation of GNS base
on chemically method was studied, thereby large
scale production of GNS may be done in future.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Synthesis of GNS
In this research, GNS was produced with Hummer’s
modified method (Siburian, 2012). Briefly, 1 gram
graphite was mixed with 75 mL H
2
SO
4
96% and 1
gram NaNO
3
, stirred for 4 hours. Then, 5 gram
KMnO
4
gradually was added into solution, stirred 4
hours, T = 20
o
C at ice water bath condition. At the
end of 4 hours, the solution was move from ice
water bath and it was continue stirred for 48 hours at
room temperature to form dark brown solution.
Subsequently, 5 mL H
2
O
2
30% and 100 mL H
2
SO
4
5% was put into solution, respectively, stirred 2
hours to form graphite oxide. After that, graphite
oxide solution was centrifuged at 6500 rotor per
minute (rpm) for 20 minutes to separate between
residue and supernatant. Then, residue was added 10
mL piranha solution and aquades, centrifuged at
6500 rpm for 20 minutes, respectively to form
graphite oxide solution.
100 mL graphite oxide solution was
ultrasonicated on 5060 Hz for 5 hours to form
graphene oxide. Finally, 10 mL graphene oxide
solution was added 0.01 mg magnesium (Mg)
powder, stirred for 72 hours, filtrated and heated at T
= 80 ºC for 24 hours to produce GNS. Graphite,
36
Sihotang, H., Siburian, R., Simanjuntak, C., Raja, S., Supeno, M., Sukmawati, V. and Alfian, Z.
Formation Process of Graphene Nano Sheets.
DOI: 10.5220/0008839400360038
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Chemical Science and Technology Innovation (ICOCSTI 2019), pages 36-38
ISBN: 978-989-758-415-2
Copyright
c
 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

graphite oxide, graphene oxide and GNS were
characterized by using FTIR, respectively.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
First of all, graphite as a raw material was
characterized with FTIR (Figure 1).
Figure 1: FTIR spectrum of graphite.
Figure 1 show that there is a weak and broad peak at
1581 cm
-1
, indicating graphite consists of double
bond aromatic carbon. In contrast, FTIR spectra of
graphite oxide is totally different compare to
graphite (Figure 2).
Figure 2: FTIR spectrum of graphite oxide.
FTIR data indicates that graphite oxide has hydroxyl
functional group (-OH) (wave number (υ) = 3,410 cm
-
1
), CH
2
(2,924 cm
-1
), CH
3
(2,854 cm
-1
), C=O (1,705
cm
-1
), and C-O (1,118 cm
-1
). Meanwhile, FTIR data of
graphite oxide may be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: FTIR spectrum of graphene oxide.
The formation of graphene oxide may be indicated
with υ = 3,410 cm
-1
(-OH), 1,620 cm
-1
(C=O), and
1,273 cm
-1
(C-O). Finally, graphene oxide was
reduced by using Mg to form GNS (Figure 4). In the
presence of Mg, the epoxide functional group may
be replaced by Mg.
Figure 4: FTIR spectrum of graphene.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The formation of graphene occurs when functional
group of graphene oxide was reduced by Mg. Mg
may only reduced epoxy functional group.
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