Synthesis and Solid-State NMR Structural Characterization of 13C-Labeled Graphite Oxide
Weiwei Cai,1,2
Richard D. Piner,1
Frank J. Stadermann,3
Sungjin Park,1
Medhat A. Shaibat,4
Yoshitaka Ishii,4
Dongxing Yang,1
Aruna Velamakanni,1
Sung Jin An,5
Meryl Stoller,1
Jinho An,1
Dongmin Chen,2
Rodney S. Ruoff1*
The detailed chemical structure of graphite oxide (GO), a layered
material prepared from graphite almost 150 years ago and a precursor
to chemically modified graphenes, has not been previously resolved
because of the pseudo-random chemical functionalization of each
layer, as well as variations in exact composition. Carbon-13
(
13C) solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR) spectra
of GO for natural abundance
13C have poor signal-to-noise ratios.
Approximately 100%
13C-labeled graphite was made and converted
to
13C-labeled GO, and
13C SSNMR was used to reveal details
of the chemical bonding network, including the chemical groups
and their connections. Carbon-13–labeled graphite can
be used to prepare chemically modified graphenes for
13C SSNMR
analysis with enhanced sensitivity and for fundamental studies
of
13C-labeled graphite and graphene.
2 Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China.
3 Laboratory for Space Sciences, Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
4 Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
5 National Creative Research Initiative Center for Semiconductor Nanorods and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Gyeongbuk 790-784, Korea.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: r.ruoff{at}mail.utexas.edu
