Graphene is considered the world's strongest and thinnest material, in addition to be a very good heat and electricity conductor. Traditional methods to produce graphene include mechanical exfoliation, Chemical Vapor Deposition or thermal expansion but none of them are attractive from the commercial point of view due to its low yield or the poor quality of the retrieved product [1]. Graphite and graphene oxide are the most important graphene allotropes. Graphite oxide is obtained by generation of oxygenated functional groups on the surface and edges of graphite which, after its layer expansion, provides graphene oxide. Nowadays, graphene oxide reduction (via chemical or thermal routes) seems to be the best method to synthesize graphene at industrial scale [2] although, as a consequence of the experimental procedure followed, some defects remain in the final structure of the product. Graphite oxide can be synthesized by either Brodie, Staudenmaier, or Hummers method and its variations, namely Modified Hummers Method or Improved Hummers Method [3]. Among them, Improved Hummers Method is characterized by its both lower toxicity and several advantages in terms of the resulting products. Even so, the oxidation protocol associated to the Improved Hummed Method clearly depends on the abundant use of strong acids (leading to subsequent environmental issues), high treatment times and tedious purification processes, which results in high manufacture costs [4]. These reasons among others make the industrial commercialization of graphite oxide and its derivative products to be limited. In previously papers, optimization of the Improved Hummers Method (as reported in Literature [3]) which use graphite as the raw material and KMnO 4 and H 2 SO 4 as chemical reagents to produce the oxidation of graphite was reported. Chen et al. [5] proposed in 2013 the elimination of NaNO 3 for the reaction and H 3 PO 4 for graphite oxide washing and demonstrated the disposal of waste water. Lavin-Lopez et al. [6] showed that the oxidation time could be
The oxidation capacity of several procedures described in the literature which use different oxidizing agents has been exhaustively studied in order to describe the best route for oxidation of this material. The oxidation capacities of different types of materials were evaluated in the synthesis of graphite oxide in an effort to obtain a product with similar characteristics to those provided by commonly employed methods. The results obtained show that graphite oxide structures are greatly influenced by the nature of the oxidizing agent used. It was concluded that it is possible not only to establish the number of oxygenated groups attached to the structure but also, and depending on the oxidizing agent used, to know the stability of graphite oxide. The different characteristics of each graphite oxide obtained could facilitate their use in multiple applications.
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