High performance supercapacitors based on reduced graphene oxide in aqueous and ionic liquid electrolytes Original Research Article

Partially reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has been fabricated using hydrobromic acid. Since hydrobromic acid is a weak reductant, some oxygen functional groups which are relatively stable for electrochemical systems remain in RGO. Therefore, RGO can be re-dispersed in water and 2–3 layers of graphene can be observed by transmission electron microscopy, showing excellent affinity with water. RGO facilitates the penetration of aqueous electrolyte and introduces pseudocapacitive effects. Moreover, its capacitive nature is enhanced after cycling measurements. It is concluded that the increase of capacitance is due to the reduction of the oxygen functional groups by the cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis. The electrochemical properties in the ionic liquid electrolyte, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (BMIPF6), are also investigated. At a current density of 0.2 A g−1, the maximum capacitance values of 348 and 158 F g−1 are obtained in 1 M H2SO4 and BMIPF6, respectively.