Fabrication of super-elastic graphene aerogels by ambient pressure drying and application to adsorption of oils

Abstract

Three-dimensional graphene-based aerogels have promising applications in oil adsorption and environmental restoration. However, current research of graphene-based aerogels is often hindered by high preparation cost, poor mechanical properties and low recycling efficiency. Here, super-elastic graphene aerogel (SGA) was prepared through one-step freezing and twice hydrothermal reduction followed by drying under ambient pressure. The simple atmospheric drying provides a possibility for large-scale preparation of high performance graphene-based aerogels. The prepared SGA not only has the ability of highly repeatable compression rebound, but also exhibits excellent oil adsorption performance. And the overall performance of SGA is better than most of graphene-based aerogels prepared by freeze drying. After the SGA was cyclically compressed with 70% strain for 300 times, it can return to the original shape and height substantially. SGA retained about 90% of the initial adsorption capacity after 50 cycles of adsorption and compression regeneration for cyclohexane.