Enhancing the Capacitance Performance of Reduced Graphene Oxide by Guinea Fowl Feather Derived Nitrogen Doping

Abstract

The reason behind this research is to enhance the capacitance performance of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) through nitrogen doping derived from Guinea fowl feathers. The large surface area of rGO area and its electrical conductivity explain its suitability for super capacitor electrodes, while nitrogen doping introduces additional active sites and improves electron transfer. This research reports effectiveness of Guinea fowl feather in simultaneously reducing and nitrogen doping. Graphene oxide was reduced, after its synthesis by modified Hummer’s method, by hydrothermal method with and without the Guinea fowl feather and labelled as N-rGO and rGO respectively. The impact of the guinea fowl feather derived nitrogen doping on the morphology and textual properties of the rGO was studied using XRD, FTIR and TEM. On the other hand, the electrochemical performance of the N-doped rGO was studied using Galvanostatic Charge Discharge (GCD) and Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), respectively. The dopant overcomes the restacking of graphene layers, leading to mesopores and more surface area available for electron movement and better electrochemical performance. The Faradaic behaviour of the dopant makes N-rGO_2.5 exhibit higher specific capacitance (216Fg^-1 and 156Fg^-1) than the undoped rGO (95.6Fg^-1) in aqueous 0.5M H₂SO₄ electrolyte.