Improved Graphene-Oxide-Derived Carbon Sponge for Effective Hydrocarbon Absorption and C–C Coupling Reaction

Abstract

Graphenic sponges have created tantamount interest due to their special affinity for absorbing a broad range of petroleum oils and solvents resulting from controllable surface wettability. A major challenge is to fabricate such materials with surface hydrophilicity coexisting with hydrophobicity. Herein, we report a scalable self-assembly of randomly oriented improved graphene oxide (IGO) sheets into a graphene oxide sponge (GOS-H) with uniform cylindrical shape via a hydrothermal method. Extensive characterization of GOS-H using Raman microspectroscopy, Raman imaging, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and electron microscopic (SEM and HRTEM) techniques suggests the sponge surface is hydrophobic with some hydrophilic oxygen content and has defect sites and roughness associated with voids formation. These features and conformal C–O coating on the basal plans result in high-diesel-range alkanes absorption from pure alkanes as well as from alkane–water mixture, which could enable as-synthesized GOS-H a...