title: Continuous production of nitrogen-functionalized graphene nanosheets for catalysis applications.
abstract: This study reports the "continuous production" of high-quality, few-layer nitrogen-functionalized graphene nanosheets in aqueous solutions directly from graphite via a two-step method. The initial step utilizes our recently developed peroxide-mediated soft and green electrochemical exfoliation approach for the production of few-layer graphene nanosheets. The subsequent step, developed here, produces nitrogen-functionalized graphene nanosheets via selective alkylation/basic hydrolysis reactions using rather a simple nitrogen precursor bromoacetonitrile, which was never reported in the literature. A possible reaction mechanism of the nitrogen-functionalized graphene formation is proposed. The proposed method allows the quantification of the phenolic and hydroxyl functional groups of anodic few-layer graphene via the derivatization chemistry approach. Additionally, a nitrogen-functionalized graphene-gold nanocrystal hybrid is prepared using gold nanocrystals obtained via the microwave irradiation of H[AuCl4] and trisodium citrate solution. A systematic investigation demonstrates that the nitrogen-functionalized graphene-gold nanocrystal hybrid shows enhanced catalytic reduction of carbonyl compounds such as benzaldehyde.
authors.affiliation: Promotion Center for Global Materials Research (PCGMR), Department of Material Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. yoshimur@mail.ncku.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Kodepelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sanjeeva Rao
authors.forename: Jaganathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Senthilnathan
authors.forename: Jyh-Ming
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ting
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yoshimura