Facile One-Pot Bottom–Up Synthesis of Graphene and Ni/Graphene Nanostructures and Their Excellent Adsorption Performances

In this paper, a facile one-pot bottom-up approach for the preparation of graphene and Ni/graphene nanostructures at normal pressure and low temperature (150 ∘ ${}^{\circ }$ C) has been developed. The graphene and Ni/graphene nanostructures were prepared by reducing hexachloro-benzene (C 6 Cl 6 ) ${}_6)$ with potassium in n $n$ -tetradecane (C 1 4 ${}_{14}$ H 3 0 ) ${}_{30})$ solution without the presence of a catalyst. Meanwhile, the effect of Ni content on the specific surface area (SSA) of the final products was investigated. The testing results display that the as-prepared samples have large SSA and high C/O ratio, implying that the designed synthesis method is simple and efficient. To evaluate the adsorption performances of the samples, we select organic dye rhodamine B (RhB) as the model organic contaminant in aqueous solutions. The experimental results show that the samples possess high adsorption capacity ( q max $q_{max}=943.4$ $$ mg g − 1 ) ${}^{-1})$ , ultrafast adsorption rate ( > 9 9 $>99$ %, 2 $$ min), high adsorption efficiency ( ≥ 9 9 . 8 $\ge 99.8$ %) and good chemical stability in a wide pH range (2–11), high salt tolerance ( > 8 0 $>80$ $$ mg mL − 1 ) ${}^{-1})$ , and good reusability ( > 9 9 . 5 $>99.5$ %, 9 cycles) for dye RhB from water. In particular, the samples exhibit a good property for the treatment of the raw industrial wastewater (RIW).