Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
5 years ago

A Highly Efficient Flocculant for Graphene Oxide Recycling and its Applications.

Yao Li, Di Zhang, Dawei Wang, RuiYing Luan, Lin Mao, Hui Pan, Shenmin Zhu, Yuning Ma
Graphene-related materials, such as graphene oxide (GO), have been used in a wide range of products, processes and industries in the past decade. The recycle of the materials has long been a challenge. In this study, we found a novel and efficient way of recycling graphene oxide (GO) by adding ZnO colloid into the GO solution. GO flocculates immediately when mixed with ZnO colloids. Interestingly, the flocculation would disappear and disperse homogeneously in solution if a certain amount of HCl acid is added. The study offers a solution to recover and reuse graphene oxide throughout its production procedures. More importantly, in the obtained reduced GO/ZnO (rGO/ZnO) flocculant, ZnO nanorods are observed self-assembled into an ordered structure in between the rGO sheets. This prevents the rGO sheets from re-stacking and facilitates the movement of the electrolyte into ZnO if the prepared rGO/ZnO is used as an electrode for super capacitor. Electrochemical measurements have proved that the rGO/ZnO composite with a weight ratio of 1:1 exhibits a gravimetric capacitance of 175 F•g<sup>-1</sup> and the rGO/ZnO electrode maintains 89.6% of the initial capacitance after 5000 cycles of uses.

Publisher URL: http://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6528/aa9a20

DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/aa9a20

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.