Ultralight, highly elastic and bioinspired capillary-driven graphene aerogels for highly efficient organic pollutants absorption

Abstract

Inspired by capillary-driven pump existing in nature, a capillary-like hydrophobic GO/GONR-APTES composite aerogel (MGGNA) was creatively fabricated by crosslinking one-dimensional functional GONRs with three-dimensional graphene aerogel. The prepared MGGNA presented a very low density in the range of 2.32–4.11 mg cm−3, high porosity (97.5–98.6%) and high surface area (45.1 m2 g−1) as well as high compression and recoverability properties, recovering 96.6% when compressed to 90% strain in a dry environment. The adsorption of organic pollutants was carried by the capillary force through the capillary-like channels inside the MGGNA, and the super-absorption capacity for organic solvents was up to 447 g g−1. The MGGNA exhibited excellent performance stability over repeated use in combustion and mechanical squeezing cycles. Meanwhile, the dynamic test illustrated the continuous and highly efficient in-situ oil/water separation. Such outstanding properties make the resulting MGGNA present the prospect of practical application in organic pollution cleanup.