High surface area carbon-based materials are extremely useful in several filtration or waste management technologies. Activated carbon are also considered for carbon dioxide capture from gaseous mixtures, either via physisorption or chemisorption. Graphene, which is a fully exfoliated form of graphite shows promise to have a high specific surface area, in addition to its high electrical and thermal conductivity. This combination is promising for efficient desorption and reusability of such filter membranes. Nevertheless, obtaining a graphene foam/aerogel is usually challenging, requiring either solid templates (metal foams) or organic matrices that promotes gel-formation. Recently, methods for obtaining template-free and scalable syntheses of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) aerogels have been developed, including at RISE-Materials and Surface Design. Thus, it is possible to obtain graphene foams in a matter of hours and under mild reaction conditions. Here we show graphene aerogels with tailored porosity as well as preliminary results with filtration properties. In addition, we will also show a novel rGO nanocomposite with a wide range of potential applications.
