Highly atom-economic synthesis of graphene/Mn3O4 hybrid composites for electrochemical supercapacitors

A highly atom-economic procedure for the preparation of reduced graphene oxide/Mn3O4 (rGO/Mn3O4) composites is reported. Pristine graphene oxide/manganese sulfate (GO/MnSO4) suspension produced by modified Hummers method is utilized with high efficiency, which has been in situ converted into GO/Mn3O4 hybrid composite by air oxidation, then into rGO/Mn3O4 composite by means of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma-assisted deoxygenation. The Mn3O4 content of the rGO/Mn3O4 composites can be readily tailored. It is observed that Mn3O4 nanoparticles of 15–24 nm are well-dispersed on graphene sheets with Mn3O4 loading as high as 90%. The specific capacitance of the as-prepared rGO/Mn3O4 hybrids with 90% Mn3O4 reaches 193 F g−1 when employed as the electrode material in neutral Na2SO4 electrolyte solutions (76 F g−1 for pristine graphene and 95 F g−1 for pure Mn3O4), which indicates the positive synergetic effects from both graphene and attached Mn3O4. The method developed in this study should offer a new technique for the large scale and highly atom-economic production of graphene/MnOx composites for many applications.