The present study reports photocatalytic behaviors of stand-alone graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanostructures synthesized by improved Hummer’s method. The synthesized materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, ultra-violet visible (UV–Vis) and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry. The photocatalytic activities of the synthesized nanostructures were evaluated from monitoring the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye solution under UV/sunlight exposure. The experimental results showed that stand-alone GO/rGO nanostructures have significant intrinsic photocatalytic character to replace other toxic semiconductor photocatalysts. The photocatalytic character of bare GO/rGO nanomaterials are attributed to existence of finite band gap tuned by oxygen containing functionalities on their aromatic rings.

中文翻译：

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独立氧化石墨烯（GO）和还原氧化石墨烯（rGO）纳米结构的光催化性能

本研究报告了通过改进的 Hummer 方法合成的独立氧化石墨烯 (GO) 和还原氧化石墨烯 (rGO) 纳米结构的光催化行为。使用 X 射线衍射 (XRD)、扫描电子显微镜 (SEM)、能量色散 X 射线 (EDX) 光谱、紫外可见 (UV-Vis) 和傅里叶变换红外 (FTIR) 光谱对合成材料进行表征. 通过监测亚甲蓝 (MB) 染料溶液在紫外线/阳光照射下的降解来评估合成纳米结构的光催化活性。实验结果表明，独立的 GO/rGO 纳米结构具有显着的内在光催化特性，可以替代其他有毒的半导体光催化剂。