Water Processable Energy Storage Hybrid Materials Using Graphene Oxide as Dispersing Agent

Graphene capsules, namely hollow structures with thin graphene shells have been shown to be a promising material for oil absorption. They are typically made by assembling graphene-based sheets around a template followed by fixation and template removal. Graphene-based sheets are also strong microwave absorbers. Therefore, one can potentially take advantages of microwave heating to rapidly and selectively heat up graphene-based sheets to anneal them and vaporize the template to obtain hollow structures in one step. Here we propose to develop rapid microwave pyrolysis routes to synthesize compartmentalized graphene capsules composed of many small hollow chambers. Like simple hollow graphene spheres, such capsules should also have high surface area but with much higher mechanical stability due to the compartmentalizing walls that serve as internal support. Such complex shaped graphene capsules should be useful as oil absorption and as matrix for accommodating expandable nanoparticles for making battery electrodes.