Reduced graphene oxide today

Abstract

Reduced graphene oxide has similar mechanical, optoelectronic or conductive properties to pristine graphene because it possesses a heterogeneous structure comprised of a graphene-like basal plane that is additionally decorated with structural defects and populated with areas containing oxidized chemical groups. The graphene-like properties make reduced graphene oxide a highly desirable material to be used in a plethora of sensorial, biological, environmental or catalytic applications as well as optoelectronic and storage devices. To further advance the development of the existent technologies and to design novel and better applications based on reduced graphene oxide, it is first necessary to understand which synthetic routes and processing strategies are suitable to significantly boost specific properties of this material alone or as a component in various composites. Therefore, in this work, we review the most important categories of recent applications based on reduced graphene oxide, with the emphasis on the relationship between the enhanced composite/device functionality and methods used to synthesize, to functionalize and/or to process and to structure reduced graphene oxide.