Synthesis of Fluorinated Graphene Oxide and its Amphiphobic Properties

Abstract

The richly functionalized basal plane bonded to polar organic moieties makes graphene oxide (GO) innately hydrophilic. Here, a methodology to synthesize fluorinated graphene oxide by oxidizing the basal plane of fluorinated graphite, allowing for tunable hydrophobicity of GO, is reported. Fluorine exists as tertiary alkyl fluorides covalently bonded to graphitic carbons, and using magic‐angle spinning (MAS) 13C NMR as a primary tool chemical structures for the two types of synthesized fluorinated graphene oxides (FGOs) with significantly different fluorine contents are proposed. The low surface energy of the C–F bond drastically affects GO's wetting behavior, leading to amphiphobicity in its highly fluorinated form. Ease of solution processing enables the fabrication of inks that are spray‐painted on various porous/non‐porous substrates. These coatings maintain amphiphobicity for solvents with surface tensions down to 59 dyn/cm, thus bypassing existing lithographic means to create similar surfaces. The approach towards fluorinating GO and fabricating graphene‐based surfaces with tunable wettability opens the path towards unique, accessible, carbon‐based amphiphobic coatings.

Improved heterogeneous electron transfer kinetics of fluorinated graphene derivatives

“…16 Recently, some of these authors studied various multifunctional properties of FG derivatives, and attempted a green synthesis route towards the development of bulk amount of FG. 17 In this study, we report a phenomenal enhancement in the electron transfer properties of graphene upon uorine incorporation and demonstrate the fundamental mechanism underlying this enhanced heterogeneous electron transfer (HET) process with the aid of detailed electrochemistry analysis and computational simulation. Detailed HET studies on uorinated graphene oxide (FGO) (a functional derivative of FG, containing various oxygen functionalities) and reduced uorinated graphene oxide (RFGO) were conducted for the rst time with a negatively charged redox molecule namely [Fe(CN) 6 several other factors such as conductivity (way of synthesis), percentage and nature of defects, presence of functionalities, orientation and presence of other elements.…”

“…Furthermore, the presence of uorine in the graphitic matrix is reduces the surface energy and hence make the surface more hydrophobic. 17 Hence, even oxygenated FGO has been reported for its amphiphobic properties by some of the authors. Hence, the negatively charged redox molecule will not get repelled by the electrode, although it contains negatively charged oxygen functionalities.…”

“…Fluorinated GO (FGO) has also been prepared using a similar method taking uorinated graphite polymer (Alfa Aesar 42537) as the starting material and scooping the phase separated top part, as has been reported in previous work. 17 Both GO and FGO were subjected to a controlled thermal reduction at 90 C under hydrazine hydrate atmosphere for 12 hours in vacuum oven to obtain graphene (RGO) and FG (RFGO).…”

Preparation and properties of a novel graphene fluoroxide/polyimide nanocomposite film with a low dielectric constant

“…Therefore, GF is expected to be an ideal nano-ller to decrease the dielectric constant of PI lm. Recently, graphene uoroxide (GFO), combining the properties of both GO and GF, has found applications in optical limiting applications, 29 amphiphobic coating, 30 primary lithium batteries, 31 and drug delivery.…”

Recent advances in optical limiting properties of fluorinated graphene oxides

“…Sample characterization and synthesis methods can be found in our previous reports 32,33 . We measured optical limiting of three samples namely, graphene oxides (GO) , fluorinated graphene oxide (F-GO), and highly fluorinated graphene oxides (HF-GO).…”