High performance supercapacitor electrodes based on deoxygenated graphite oxide by ball milling

Many applications such as supercapacitors require high quality graphene as well as gram-scale production. In the present work, we report a gram-scale, environment-friendly method to produce reduced graphene oxide by short time ball milling. The results of X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman shift, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy indicate that graphene oxide was reduced after ball milling and exfoliated into graphene. Meanwhile, the electrochemical properties of such graphene as electrode materials were obviously enhanced. The maximum capacitance is as high as 212 F g(-1) at 0.2 A g(-1) in 1 M H2SO4. Enhanced performance of supercapacitor electrode based on this graphene is mainly attributed to better conductivity which will promote the establishment of both double-layer and pseudocapacitance due to their rich edge functionality after ball milling. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.