fabrication and characterization of nanostructured reduced graphene oxide derived from the peel of wild pistachio fruits

This abstract provides an overview of the preparation of reduced graphene oxide (rgo) from the peel of wild pistachio (pistacia atlantica desf.) fruits (pwpf) collected from the zagros mountains forest in the west of iran. the main aim of this study is to extract rgo layers using a biomass source via the room temperature method. the process begins with the collection and cleaning of pwpf. in this way, 100 g of pwpf was washed using ultrapure water (upw), sun-dried for 5 h, and finally completely dried in an oven. after that, the pwpf was carbonized using a muffle furnace at 550 c for 3h. the obtained powder was then rinsed with upw and then 15 g of graphite sample was dissolved in 20 ml of hf and stirred at 50 ᵒc for 3 h. this step was conducted to ensure the complete removal of impurities. the resultant was collected by centrifugation, washed several times with upw, and dried at 80 ᵒc. rgo was fabricated from as-prepared graphite using a simple room temperature method. in detail, 320 ml of h2so4 and 80 ml of h3po4 were mixed successively with 3 g of graphite under magnetic stirring. 18 g of kmno4 was then slowly added over a period of 10 h. after that, the mixing procedure was extended for 5 more days to permit the oxidation of graphite. next, 60 ml of h2o2 (dropwise) was added to the solution to terminate the reaction, causing a color change from black to light brown. the resulting mixture was centrifuged and the resultant was washed with 1m hci for 3 times and upw several times to raise ph to neutral. the final product was dried in an oven at 80ᵒc for 10 h. the obtained sample is characterized using several analytical techniques, including x-ray diffraction (xrd), raman spectroscopy, fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ftir), scanning electron microscopy (sem), transmission electron microscopy (tem), and bruner-emmett-teller (bet). these characterization techniques provide valuable information about the structure, morphology, and chemical composition of the synthesized rgo. from the results of xrd, the prepared rgo exhibited two diffraction peaks at 2θ = 23.15° (002) and 42.14° (100). these peaks tend to characterize that the sample owns a reduced graphene oxide phase (jcpds 96-901-1590). the results of the raman spectrum of rgo present that the peak at approximately 1350 cm−1 is attributed to the defects and disorder of sp3 carbon atoms (d band), while the peak at around 1600 cm−1 corresponds to the vibration of sp2 carbon atoms (g band). the ftir results confirm the presence of various functional groups such as hydroxyl (o-h), carboxyl (-cooh), aromatic c=c, and epoxy (c-o) in the rgo structure. sem image exhibits irregular multi-layers of rgo. it showed that this structure has abundant macro-pores and large surface areas. the tem result of prepared rgo shows a transparent crumpled-like structure with thin thickness. this confirms that rgo is successfully synthesized from pwpf waste. the surface area and pore volume of the prepared rgo were obtained 38 m2/g and 0.09 cm3/g, respectively, using bet. in conclusion, this study presents a simple method for the preparation of rgo from pwpf. the characterization techniques provided valuable insights into the structural and chemical properties of the synthesized rgo. the general pathway of this study shows that the rgo prepared from pwpf biomass waste could be a low-cost, eco-friendly, and promising candidate for applications in various fields such as energy storage devices, water pollutant adsorption, biomedical applications, etc.