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A novel hollowed-out Si microsphere encapsulated by graphene oxide: a strong and reusable absorbent

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Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) has been a promising adsorbent to remove dyes, heavy metals and other pollutants from aqueous solutions, due to its huge surface area and rich oxygenic groups. However, one of the major application challenges is the agglomeration of GO layers which greatly affect its adsorption capacity and recycle performance. In this paper, a novel hollowed-out Si microsphere encapsulated by GO layers was developed as a strong and reusable absorbent. Hollowed-out Si microsphere with a dendritic structure was obtained from micron Al–Si alloy powder via acid treatment. Then it can be encapsulated by GO layers via a hydrogen bonding interaction between oxygenic groups from GO and Si–OH/Al–OH from porous Si skeleton. The designed absorbent has excellent adsorption ability for methylene blue and heavy metal ions resulting from the large surface area and oxygen functional groups of unrolled GO sheets. Meanwhile, it shows good reusability for pollutants owing to the spread of GO sheets on the Si skeleton surface which could prevents the aggregation of GO during adsorption process.

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Acknowledgements

The study received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21908251), Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (2019JJ40535), Hunan high-level talent gathering project-innovative talents (2019RS1061), PhD research startup foundation of Central South University of Forestry and Technology (104-0456), and the Youth Scientific Research Foundation, Central South University of Forestry and Technology (QJ2018003B).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Lushan South Road, No. 932, Changsha, 410006, China

    Miaohua Liu & Xiaohui Fan

  2. Hunan Province Key Laboratory of Materials Surface & Interface Science and Technology, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Shaoshan South Road, No. 498, Changsha, 410004, China

    Xiu Zhu, Yuan Wei, Hong Zhou, Jinbo Hu & Gonggang Liu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Utilization of Woody Oil Resource, Hunan Academy of Forestry, Shaoshan South Road, No. 498, Changsha, 410004, China

    Rukuan Liu

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  1. Miaohua Liu
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  2. Xiu Zhu
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  3. Yuan Wei
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  4. Hong Zhou
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  7. Gonggang Liu
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Correspondence to Gonggang Liu or Xiaohui Fan.

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Liu, M., Zhu, X., Wei, Y. et al. A novel hollowed-out Si microsphere encapsulated by graphene oxide: a strong and reusable absorbent. J Porous Mater 27, 979–987 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-020-00877-1

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