Rapid Synthesis of Porous Graphene Microspheres through a Three-Dimensionally Printed Inkjet Nozzle for Selective Pollutant Removal from Water

Abstract

Graphene microspheres are fabricated through a 3D-printed inkjet nozzle based on the gas-liquid microfluidic method. This method realizes rapid and controllable fabrication of uniform graphene microspheres with up to 800 μL min-1 (ca. 1 L d-1) of yields, which is 2 orders of magnitude higher than those of the conventional microfluidic method. The diameter of the graphene microspheres could be flexibly controlled from 0.5 to 3.5 mm by adjusting the gas pressure. The porous graphene microspheres show great dye decoloration performance. The maximum adsorption capacity of methylene blue is 596 mg/g, which is the highest adsorption capacity among that of the reduced graphene-oxide absorbents. A performance improvement of 21% is obtained by applying sodium alginate into graphene as a curing agent. The adsorption behavior follows a Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Besides, the graphene microspheres exhibit great selective adsorption and could separate cationic dye methylene blue (MB) and anionic dye methyl orange (MO).