Synthesis and characterization of the thermally reduced graphene oxide in argon atmosphere, and its application to construct graphene paste electrode as a naptalam electrochemical sensor.

New insight into the preparation of sensitive carbon-based electrochemical electrode is provided by examining the properties of thermally reduced graphene oxide (TRGO). In this paper, TRGO was prepared by thermal reduction of graphene oxide (GO) in argon atmosphere, and characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Results showed that thermal reduction in argon was effective to remove oxygen-containing functional groups in GO, and graphene sheets were obtained.

Effect of Solvent Variations in the Alcothermal Synthesis of Template-Free Mesoporous Titania for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Applications.

A series of 14 mesoporous titania materials has been synthesized using the simple alcothermal template-free method and various alcohols, such as methanol, propanols and butanols, as solvents. All materials were characterized by both wide and small angle XRD, which exhibited the anatase phase with short-range ordered mesoporous structure that is still forming during post synthetic temperature treatment in most of the investigated materials. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms confirmed the mesoporous structure with surface area ranging from 241 to 383 m2g- 1 and pore volumes from 0.