Graphene has received intensive research interest as a promising electrode material for energy storage applications because of its unique combination of properties including high intrinsic electrical conductivity, good mechanical flexibility, exceptional theoretical surface area and capacitance. The approaches to engineer graphene-based materials mostly involve functionalization, structural modification for the porous structure with abundant defective sites or incorporating other redox-active substances as the composite. Among various oxygen functional groups on graphene oxide, carbonyl group is regarded as the most active group to provide reversible redox reactions with Li ions.[1] The conservation of the redox-active carbonyl group during conventional chemical and thermal reduction processes of graphene oxide has so far shown only limited effect. Thus, the selective reduction process of oxygen functional groups on graphene oxide is a particularly promising strategy to enhance the charge storage performance on highly porous nanostructures. In this study, we prepared reduced holey graphene oxide with a combination of chemical etching and selective reduction processes, proposing a high performance cathode material for rechargeable lithium ion batteries. In addition, in order to further enhance the charge storage performance, a redox-active organic compound is introduced onto the holey graphene oxide structure.

References

1. T. Y. Liu, K. C. Kim, R. Kavian, S. S. Jang, S. W. Lee, Chem. Mater. 27, 3291-3298 (2015).