凯发

Graphene, as a novel carbon material which is characterized by unique two-dimensional structure and fascinating physical and chemical properties, shows its great potential in many fields, such as energy storage and conversion, environment, catalyst and so on. Integration of graphene sheets (Gs) into macroscopic structures is a very important way for their application and has received increasing interest.

With a purpose to promote the basic research and application of graphene, we successfully prepared compressive graphene aerogels by reacting GO with EDA via chemical-reduction assembly and then freeze-drying. The aerogels, with density ranges from 4.4 to 7.9 mg/cm3, hold good compressibility in both air and organic liquids. The electrical resistance of the aerogel is variable under compress and proportional to the strain. Also the excellent fire-resistance allows the aerogel reusable after burnt. The high porosity was estimated to be 99.6%, with a superhydrophobicity with a contact angle of 155 o inside, thus allowing the aerogels to absorb different organic liquids, with the capacity varying from 100 to 250 depending on the density of the organic liquids. Due to the hydrophobicity of the aerogel, it can float on the water for absorbing the oil and then play as a porous carbon wick to combustion continually and recurrently. Finally, the absorbed oil can be removed by combustion, while the absorption-distillation and the absorption-squeezing process were successfully demonstrated for the oil collection. Especially the absorption-squeezing process is quick and less energy consumption which is more attractive in applications, where the aerogel acts as an organogel during the process.