Magnetic graphene foam for efficient adsorption of oil and organic solvents

Sudong Yang; Lin Chen; Lei Mu; Peng-Cheng Ma

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2014.05.062

Magnetic graphene foam for efficient adsorption of oil and organic solvents

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2014 Sep 15:430:337-44. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.05.062. Epub 2014 Jun 9.

Authors

Sudong Yang¹, Lin Chen², Lei Mu², Peng-Cheng Ma³

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Environmental Science and Technology, The Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Key Laboratory of Functional Materials and Devices for Special Environments, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
² Laboratory of Environmental Science and Technology, The Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
³ Laboratory of Environmental Science and Technology, The Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Key Laboratory of Functional Materials and Devices for Special Environments, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China. Electronic address: mapc@ms.xjb.ac.cn.

PMID: 24974246
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.05.062

Abstract

This paper reported the preparation of magnetic graphene foam loaded with magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles and its application for the adsorption of oil and organic solvents. The foam with porous and hierarchical structures was derived from graphene oxide film reduced by gaseous reduction in a hydrothermal system. Drastically different morphologies of Fe3O4 nanoparticles with nanosheet arrays or cubic structures were observed on graphene foam by controlling the reduction degree of graphene oxide under mild conditions. Benefiting from the integration of porous structures and magnetic properties, the graphene foam manifests outstanding oil adsorption capacity, high restoration for absorbates as well as excellent recyclability and stability under cyclic operations. The simple and effective strategy for the preparation of graphene foams developed in this study may offer a new alternative for scale-up production of graphene materials used for the cleanup of oil spills.

Keywords: Graphene foam; Magnetic nanoparticles; Oil–water separation; Sorbent.