The exfoliation process of sawahlunto coal into graphene through the modified hummer method

Abstract

Sawahlunto is one of the coal-producing regions in Indonesia. Coal as an abundance of carbon content material is significantly drawing attention to be developed in certain material research. To begin, this research was aimed to exfoliate Graphene from Coal which was obtained from Sawahlunto, Indonesia by performing the modified hummer method. The Sawahlunto coal was treated and converted into graphite (g-Bb900) through the carbonization process at an optimum temperature of 900o C. Then, the formation of graphene oxide (GO-Bb900) was performed using the modified hummer method and followed by the reduction process to finally result in the graphene (G-Bb900). Several characterizations have been performed to confirm the graphene produced. The results of XRD and FTIR analysis indicate a significant difference in chemical and structural changes between graphite, graphene oxide and graphene. Moreover, TEM analysis also displays a significant difference in morphology analysis result of graphite, graphene oxide, and graphene. To sum up, these results have been evaluated and analyzed to prove that the graphene was successfully obtained from Sawahlunto coal.