Production of stable dispersions of reduced graphene oxide using indole as a reduction agent

Stable dispersions of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) have been prepared by indole as a previously unreported reducing agent without employing any external stabilizing reagents. The obtained RGO can be individually dispersed in ethanol, N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF), N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), tetrahydrofuran (THF) and isopropanol. Several analytical techniques including Atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis spectra, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicate that a significant fraction of the oxygen-containing functional groups are removed, yields a C/O ratio as high as 7.4. The conductivity of RGO is 21.2 S/m and the thickness of RGO increases to 1.7 nm. Furthermore, this new reducing agent is of low toxicity, which makes the reduction much safer than hydrazine and this method is cost-effective to produce single-layered RGO on a large scale.