Synthesis and characterization of polymer grafted graphene oxide sheets using a Ce(IV)/HNO3 redox system in an aqueous solution

We provide here a simple way to synthesize polymer grafted graphene oxide (GO) sheets with intercalated or exfoliated structure by using a redox system with cerium (IV) ammonium nitrate/nitric acid and GO sheets’ hydroxyl groups as the redox couple. Polystyrene, poly (methyl methacrylate) and polyacrylonitrile grafted GO sheets were synthesized in an aqueous solution by this redox-initiated free-radical polymerization strategy, and characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy. We investigated the effects of temperature and redox initiator’s concentration on the grafting efficiency. It was found that when a small amount of polymer was grafted onto GO sheets, an intercalated layer structure was formed; while an exfoliated structure was formed with a large amount of polymer grafted.