ABSTRACT

Graphene, a single-atom-thick sheet with sp2-hybrized carbon honeycomb structure, has attracted tremendous attention during the past decade. Owing to its exotic properties, graphene is considered to be an excellent candidate for the next generation of nanostructured materials. However, due to the strong van der Waals force between neighboring layers, graphene sheets intend to restack during synthesis into a few layers of thick aggregated sheets, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the surface area. This chapter presents the methods for utilizing functionalized carbon black (FCB) and polyaniline (PANI) as the spacers to prepare high-surface-area graphene composites. The surface area of the resulting composite material was measured to be as high as 1256 m2/g. The spacer particles were sandwiched between the graphene sheets, preventing the restacking of the graphene. The unique structure of the created graphene-based material facilitates the high-rate transport of electrolyte ions and electrons throughout the electrode, resulting in excellent electrochemical properties. In addition, graphene or graphene oxide (GO) as the platform to synthesize synergistic composite materials is discussed. This chapter demonstrates facile methods to construct graphene-based hierarchical nanocomposites and may guide the material development for designing new composites at the nanometer scale. These methods can easily be scaled up for mass-production of high-surface-area materials. The application of these composite materials will be extended to many elds, including energy storage and conversion, catalysis, gas sorption, sensors, etc.