Facile sonication-assisted synthesis and characterisations of silica decorated graphene nanocomposites

Abstract

This work demonstrates the fabrication of a composite nanomaterial consisting of spherical silica nanoparticles decorated onto the graphene sheets which has been prepared by the sonication-assisted method. Graphene/silica nanocomposites were fabricated by the hydrolysis of tetraethyl orthosilicate in the presence of graphene oxide which has been obtained by modified Hummer's method. The obtained nanostructures were characterised by the X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The XRD analysis depicts the coexistence of silica and graphene in the composite material. The morphology of synthesised silica-graphene nanocomposites was characterised by SEM and TEM. All images have been observed in the presence of SiO2 nanoparticles of similar sizes which were grafted on the surface of graphene effectively. More significantly, the BET analysis revealed that the silica decorated graphene nanocomposites exhibit enhanced surface area than bare silica and graphene.