Scalable template synthesis of resorcinol-formaldehyde/graphene oxide composite aerogels with tunable densities and mechanical properties

Xin Wang; Lei-Lei Lu; Zhi-Long Yu; Xue-Wei Xu; Ya-Rong Zheng; Shu-Hong Yu

doi:10.1002/anie.201410668

Scalable template synthesis of resorcinol-formaldehyde/graphene oxide composite aerogels with tunable densities and mechanical properties

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015 Feb 16;54(8):2397-401. doi: 10.1002/anie.201410668. Epub 2015 Jan 12.

Authors

Xin Wang¹, Lei-Lei Lu, Zhi-Long Yu, Xue-Wei Xu, Ya-Rong Zheng, Shu-Hong Yu

Affiliation

¹ Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P. R. China) http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/∼yulab/

PMID: 25583599
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201410668

Abstract

Resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) and graphene oxide (GO) aerogels have found a variety of applications owing to their excellent properties and remarkable flexibility. However, the macroscopic and controllable synthesis of their composite gels is still a great challenge. By using GO sheets as template skeletons and metal ions (Co(2+), Ni(2+), or Ca(2+)) as catalysts and linkers, the first low-temperature scalable strategy for the synthesis of a new kind of RF-GO composite gel with tunable densities and mechanical properties was developed. The aerogels can tolerate a strain as high as 80% and quickly recover their original morphology after the compression has been released. Owing to their high compressibility, the gels might find applications in various areas, for example, as adsorbents for the removal of dye pollutants and in oil-spill cleanup.

Keywords: aerogels; compressibility; graphene oxide; resorcinol.