Thermal processing for graphene oxide supercapacitor electrode reduction and wetting

Graphene is an excellent material for energy storage devices such as supercapacitors. Graphene electrodes have been fabricated using a variety of methods. Many of these methods are based on using graphene oxide and then reducing it using one of the various possible methods, resulting in reduced graphene oxide. This report focuses on thermal reduction along with thermally assisted ionic liquid (IL) electrolyte wetting of the electrodes. The thermal processing of graphene electrodes with IL shown here results in superior supercapacitor performance through improved IL wetting of the electrodes, due to reduced IL viscosity at elevated temperatures. Graphical Abstract