Synthesis and characterization of nanosized ZnTiO₃ doped with reduced graphene oxide (RGO)

Abstract Composite materials based on nanosized zinc titanate (ZnTiO3) doped with reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were obtained by means of ultrasonically assisted precipitation. In these composites, the concentration of RGO nanopartiles was varied from 1 wt.% to 20 wt.%. The ZnTiO3 ceramic was produced by sol-gel method. RGO was prepared by a modified Hammers method and subsequent chemical reduction with sodium borohydride. Structural and phase characterization of the fabricated composites was performed by XRD, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). It was identified that for all of the studied samples of the RGO/ZnTiO3 series, the two phases are uniformly distributed over the observed areas, which proves the formation of homogeneous nanocomposite materials. The electrical properties of the series of RGO/ZnTiO3 samples were characterized by complex electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in the frequency range from 0.1 Hz to 1 MHz. The results obtained by EIS for the electrical conductance of RGO-doped ZnTiO3 as a function of the concentration of RGO nanoparticles were correlated with the data from structural studies.