A general strategy to prepare graphene-metal/metal oxide nanohybrids

Graphene sheets decorated with metal/metal oxide nanoparticles are gaining increasing attention. In this study, sulfhydrylated graphene was prepared by reducing the sulfonic acid groups on sulfonated graphene to thiol groups. We evaluated its ability to anchor different metal/metal oxide nanoparticles by simply mixing the sulfhydrylated graphene with the corresponding pre-prepared metal/metal oxide nanoparticles. The sulfhydrylated graphene and its nanohybrids were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We demonstrate that the obtained sulfhydrylated graphene can act as a general platform to anchor different kinds of metal/metal oxide nanoparticles with different shapes, structures or properties through thiol-metal bonds. These novel hybrids will render graphene with additional interesting properties and potential applications.