In this paper, a facile and scalable aqueous process including mild oxidative intercalation, microwave exfoliation, ultrasonication, drying and Ar-annealing is developed to synthesize the water-soluble microwave-exfoliated graphene (MEG)/platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) composite, which has a relative low defect level and can be readily dispersed in deionized water without adding surfactants. This low cost synthesis method is applicable in many systems, such as supercapacitors, thermal storage, lithium battery and Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). An efficiency of 6.69% for the MEG/PtNPs composite deposited on ITO PEN as flexible counter electrode (CE) for DSSCs has been obtained, higher than the control device made by PVP-Pt as flexible CE. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.