Understanding the impact of nitrogen doping and/or amine functionalization of reduced graphene oxide via hydrothermal routes for supercapacitor applications

Abstract Nitrogen doping and amine-functionalization have previously been used to improve the capacitance of graphene-based materials, however there is a lack of understanding on the mechanisms by which these modifications impact the electrochemical behavior and electrochemical supercapacitor performance, or if these approaches can be combined to achieve synergistic benefits. Herein, we investigate this by synthesizing reduced graphene oxide (HtrGO) with varying degrees of nitrogen-doping (N-HtrGO), amine-functionalization (NH3+-HtrGO), and a hybrid amine-functionalization and nitrogen-doping (N-NH3+-HtrGO). Synthesized materials were systemically investigated to show the effect of nitrogen-doping and amine-functionalization using electrochemical characterization and rigorous physico-chemical analysis. The capacitance performance was increased in the order of NH3+-HtrGO