Various Applications of Graphene Oxide in Different Fields

Did you know that whenever you used your pencil to draw a line, you made Graphene? Yes, that’s true! In fact, graphene is renowned as the world’s thinnest material and has revolutionized various aspects of our daily lives. The existence of Graphene was known, but the process of extracting it from Graphite was undetermined until two researchers, Andre and Kostya isolated it and studied its extraction and application as Graphene Oxide.

GO or the oxide of Graphene is a distinct material that can be considered as a single molecular structure of graphite with different oxygen containing functionalities. The most commonly used modern procedures for the synthesis of GO is based on the method in which graphite is oxidized by a solution of potassium permanganate in sulfuric acid. GO can further be reduced to rGO or reduced GO that can again be formed into a thin film from an aqueous dispersion of GO in water. This reduced Graphene Oxide film has moderate conductivity and has found application in various electronic devices.

Apart from being used in electronic devices, GO and reduced GO have found application in Nano composite materials, energy storage, polymer composite materials, catalysis, biomedical applications, and also as surfactants. Here are some popular applications of this chemical marvel:

Electronics - Many electronic devices such as the graphene based field effect transistor or GFET have been fabricated using GO as a starting material for at least one of the components. FETs that use graphene have been used as both chemical sensors and biosensors. As biosensors, find application in detection of DNA and have been used as an electrochemical glucose sensor.

Energy Storage - Among the different fields of materials science that were affected by the extended study on Graphene was the world of electrochemical energy-storage devices.  Graphene finds application both as an active component and as an inactive material. Nano composites of Reduced Graphene Oxide have been used in lithium ion batteries and electrochemical capacitors for high capacity energy storage. 

Biomedical Applications - One major application of GO in the biomedical branch is its use as a constituent in drug delivery systems. Another research looked at using reduced Graphene Oxide powder for the electrochemical sensing of nitrite content in exhaled breath condensate.