Temperature influence on the synthesis of pristine graphene oxide and graphite oxide

Derivative oxide carbon materials, such as graphene or graphite oxides, have been recently considered to be a promising material in a wide scenarios of emerging technologies due to their physical and chemical properties, as well as, for their low production costs. Even if apparently similar, these materials exhibit different physical and chemical properties. One of the critical issue is associated with the exfoliation process and contributes to the formation of graphene oxide and graphite oxide material. Here, we show a single synthetic wet method to produce graphene or graphite oxide by applying a control of the operational temperature during the reaction. The process was optimised to obtain the pristine graphite oxide at low temperature (T = 0 degrees C) and the pristine graphene oxide at higher temperature (T = 30 degrees C). Finally, the peculiar features of these materials were described using spectroscopic, structural and morphological measurements. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.