Preparation of a Ni/grapheme nanocomposite by an electroless plating method

Thermally reduced graphene oxide was pretreated consecutively in solutions of SnCl2 in HCl and PdCl2 in HCl. The resulting material was then plated with nickel nanoparticles under sonication to prepare Ni/graphene nanocomposites. XRD, TEM and EDS were used to investigate the microstructure, elemental composition and the chemical plating mechanism. Results show that Sn nanoparticles are distributed evenly on the reduced graphene oxide. Pd nanoparticles are located preferentially at the edges of graphene sheets and at wrinkles in them, and are also found on some Sn nanoparticles. Ni nanoparticles are formed on the Pd nanoparticles and act as active centers for Ni growth that results in covering most of the grapheme sheet after plating. [New Carbon Materials 2014, 29(6): 432–437]