One-step molybdate ion assisted electrochemical synthesis of α-MoO3-decorated graphene sheets and its potential applications

Abstract

We introduce an easy and scalable approach to synthesize α-MoO₃-decorated graphene sheets from a graphite electrode by molybdate-assisted electrochemical exfoliation. The samples were examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis. TEM analysis shows that the exfoliated material consists of mainly a few-layers of graphene and the results of XPS, FT-IR and Raman confirmed the presence of α-MoO₃ on the graphene sheets. Moreover, XPS spectra indicate that the content of surface oxygen groups on the graphene sheets is lower than that on graphite oxide. After being heat-treated at low-temperature (200 °C), samples exhibited high conductivity (up to 5367 S m⁻¹) and good specific capacitance (up to 86.3 F g⁻¹) when tested as electrode materials in a supercapacitor.