Morphological differences in multi-layered graphene flakes or graphene nanoplatelets prepared by oxidative (rGO-NP, reduced graphene oxide-nanoplatelets) and non-oxidative (GIC-NP, graphite intercalation compound-nanoplatelets) routes were investigated with various analytical methods. Both types of NPs have similar specific surface areas but very different structural differences. Therefore, this study proposes an effective and simple method to identify structural differences in graphene-like allotropes. The adsorptive potential peaks of rGO-NP attained by the density functional theory method were found to be more scattered over the basal and non-basal regions than those of GIC-NP. Raman spectra and high resolution TEM images showed more distinctive crystallographic defects in the rGO-NP than in the GIC-NP. Because the R-ratio values of the edge and basal plane of the sample were maintained and relatively similar in the rGO-NP (0.944 for edge & 1.026 for basal), the discrepancy between those values in the GIC-NP were found to be much greater (0.918 for edge & 0.164 for basal). The electrical conductivity results showed a remarkable gap between the rGO-NP and GIC-NP attributed to their inherent morphological and crystallographic properties.

The commercial activated carbons are typically prepared by activation from coconut shell char or coal char containing lots of inorganic impurities. They also have pore structure and pore size distribution depending on nanostructure of precursor materials. In this study, two types of commercial activated carbons were applied for EDLC electrode by removing impurities with acid treatments, and controlling pore size distribution and contents of functional group with heat treatment. The effect of the surface functional groups on electrochemical performance of the activated carbon electrodes was investigated. The initial gravimetric and volumetric capacitance of coconut based activated carbon electrode which was acid treated by HNO3 and then heat treated at 800℃ were 90 F/g and 42 F/cc respectively showing 94% of charge-discharge efficiency. Such a good electrochemical performance can be possibly applied to the medium capacitance of EDLC.

The carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were synthesized through the catalytic decomposition of hydrocarbons in a quartz tube reactor. The CNFs prepared from C3H8 at 550℃ was selected as the purification sample due to the higher content of impurity than that prepared from other conditions. In this study, we carried out the purification of CNFs by oxidation in air or carbon dioxide after acid treatment, and investigated the influence of purification parameters such as kind of acid, concentration, oxidation time, and oxidation temperature on the structure of CNFs. The metal catalysts could be easily eliminated from the prepared CNFs by liquid phase purification with various acids and it was verified by ICP analysis, in which, for example, Ni content decreased from 2.51% to 0.18% with 8% nitric acid. However, the particulate carbon and heterogeneous fibers were not removed from the prepared CNFs by thermal oxidation in air and carbon dioxide. This result can be explained by that the direction of graphene sheet in CNFs is vertical to the fiber axis and the CNFs are oxidized at about the similar rate with the impurity carbon.