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Three-dimensional porous graphene sponges assembled with the combination of surfactant and freeze-drying

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Abstract

With the combination of surfactant and freeze-drying, we have developed two kinds of graphene spongy structures. On the one hand, using foams of soap bubbles as templates, three-dimensional porous graphene sponges with rich hierarchical pores have been synthesized. Pores of the material contain three levels of length scales, including millimeter, micrometer and nanometer. The structure can be tuned by changing the freezing media, adjusting the stirring rate or adding functional additives. On the other hand, by direct freeze-drying of a graphene oxide/surfactant suspension, a porous framework with directionally aligned pores is prepared. The surfactant gives a better dispersion of graphene oxide sheets, resulting in a high specific surface area. Both of the obtained materials exhibit excellent absorption capacity and good compression performance, providing a broad range of possible applications, such as absorbents, storage media, and carriers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Key Laboratory of Materials Processing Technology of MOE, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Rujing Zhang, Yachang Cao, Xiaobei Zang, Pengzhan Sun, Kunlin Wang, Minlin Zhong, Jinquan Wei, Feiyu Kang & Hongwei Zhu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Peixu Li & Dehai Wu

  3. Advanced Materials Institute, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Feiyu Kang & Hongwei Zhu

  4. Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Hongwei Zhu

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  1. Rujing Zhang
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Correspondence to Hongwei Zhu.

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Zhang, R., Cao, Y., Li, P. et al. Three-dimensional porous graphene sponges assembled with the combination of surfactant and freeze-drying. Nano Res. 7, 1477–1487 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-014-0508-x

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