Graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide

Non-stoichiometric; C:O ≈ 2–3 for GO, roughly 8–20 after reduction

Also called GO, rGO

nanosheet depends on form

The cheap, water-dispersible relative of graphene, made by attacking graphite with strong acids and oxidants. It is far more defective than pristine graphene, but it can be handled like paint, filtered into membranes and mixed into polymers – which makes it one of the most widely produced 2D materials of all.

Data sheet

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Kind of sheet: nanosheet
Made by chemistry or cut from a solid, not peeled as a clean crystal layer
Behaves as: depends on form
Band gap: GO is electrically insulating; reduction restores conductivity (sheet resistance typically 10²–10⁵ Ω/sq) but not graphene’s pristine band structure
Thickness: ~0.8–1.2 nm per GO sheet, including functional groups and adsorbed water
Structure: Graphene basal plane decorated with epoxy and hydroxyl groups, carboxyl groups at the edges (Lerf–Klinowski model); disordered on the atomic scale
Stability: GO is metastable: it slowly loses oxygen groups even at room temperature and decomposes exothermically at around 200 °C. rGO is stable, but its properties depend strongly on how it was reduced.
First made: Graphite oxide first made by Benjamin Brodie in 1859; very thin reduced flakes observed by Boehm and colleagues in 1962

Compare with other materials

Key properties

Disperses in water without surfactants as single-layer sheets up to tens of micrometres across
Reduced films typically reach 10²–10⁵ Ω/sq depending on the reduction route – orders of magnitude worse than CVD graphene
Dry GO laminates block helium yet let water vapour pass almost unimpeded
Interlayer spacing of GO laminates swells from ~0.8 nm dry to ~1.35 nm in liquid water, which limits ion sieving unless swelling is restrained

How it is made

Oxidation of graphite with KMnO₄ in H₂SO₄ (Hummers-type methods), then exfoliation in water – kilogram to tonne scale
Electrochemical oxidation of graphite – faster, less waste, tunable degree of oxidation
Reduction with hydrazine, ascorbic acid or HI, or by thermal annealing – above ~1,000 °C restores most of the conductivity

Uses, and how close they are

Membranes for water treatment and molecular separationspilot
Conductive additives, coatings and composites (as rGO)deployed
Heat-spreading films (graphitised GO)deployed
Biosensors and drug-delivery carriersprototype

Readiness runs lab → prototype → pilot → deployed.

Open problems

What is the atomic structure of GO, and can batch-to-batch variability be reduced enough for regulated uses such as medicine?
Can swelling of GO laminates in water be suppressed at membrane scale without sacrificing water flux?
Which reduction chemistry restores the most conductivity without toxic reagents or high temperatures?

Going deeper

Short notes for specialists. Choose a lens in the header and yours comes first.

For theoreticians · your lens

There is no single GO structure to compute: models distribute epoxy and hydroxyl groups over a graphene lattice with chosen coverage and clustering, and results depend on that choice. DFT with dispersion corrections and reactive molecular dynamics are the usual tools for water and ion transport through laminates; band gaps computed for specific oxygen patterns should be read as qualitative.

For experimentalists · your lens

Characterise with XPS (deconvolute C 1s into C–C, C–O, C=O and O–C=O and report the C/O ratio), XRD for laminate d-spacing, AFM for sheet thickness, and Raman – where broad D and G bands with I(D)/I(G) near 1 are not by themselves a quality metric. Oxidation level varies strongly between syntheses, so always report the protocol alongside the C/O ratio.

For engineers · your lens

Scalable and inexpensive, but it is a family rather than a single material: specify C/O ratio, flake-size distribution and residual manganese and sulfur. Hummers-type processes generate acidic, manganese-bearing waste streams; electrochemical routes reduce that burden.

In the research tracks

Readiness assessments

Recent news

The newest items tagged GO / rGO, from the news feed updated 5 Oct 2026.

News 2 Oct 2026 AZoNetwork

X-ray Microscopy Reveals Distinct Nanoparticle Responses To Vortex Flow

Researchers combined millisecond-resolution small-angle X-ray scattering microscopy with polarized light imaging to track nanoscale particle orientation and macroscopic Taylor–Couette flow across seven orders of magnitude in length scale. The experiments showed that platelet-like graphene oxide largely tracked the…

EveryoneGO / rGO Graphene

News 2 Oct 2026 Graphene-Info

Laser-reduced graphene oxide powers ITO-free solar cells and micro-supercapacitors on the same chip

Researchers at Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU), the HMU Research Center's Institute of Emerging Technologies (i-EMERGE), the Foundation for Research and Technology's Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (FORTH-IESL), and the University of Crete have used laser-reduced graphene oxide (LrGO) as a…

ExperimentEveryoneGO / rGO Graphene

Journal 1 Oct 2026 Nanoscale

Graphene Oxide-Regulated Nanoscale Construction of SnO 2 /N-Doped Carbon/rGO Composite Anodes from a Tin Naphthalocyanine Precursor for Lithium Storage

Designing nanoscale composite architectures that integrate conversion/alloying-type oxide nanocrystals with conductive carbon frameworks is an effective strategy for improving the lithium-storage behavior of high-capacity anodes. Herein, we develop a coupled...

ExperimentGO / rGO Graphene SnO

Journal 30 Sep 2026 2D Materials (IOP)

Electrochemical synthesis of graphene oxide from powdered graphitic materials

An electrochemical route for synthesizing graphene oxide (GO) from powdered graphite was investigated. Previous electrochemical GO syntheses have mainly used graphite sheets or foils; when powdered graphite has been used, the powder generally had to be packed in a porous container or compressed to maintain electrical…

ExperimentGO / rGO Graphene

News 29 Sep 2026 Graphene-Info

Functionalized graphene oxide gives liquid crystal actuator record toughness at body temperature

Researchers at Peking University, Jiangxi Normal University, the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and the University of Bristol have developed a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) actuator reinforced with thiol-functionalized graphene oxide (FGO) that combines high mechanical toughness with an activation…