Starch Nanoparticles–Graphene Aerogels with High Supercapacitor Performance and Efficient Adsorption

Abstract

In this work, graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets are combined with dialdehyde starch nanocrystals (DASNCs) to form highly porous, mechanically robust, compressible aerogels, which can be used as supercapacitor electrodes and efficient adsorbents. The introduction of the DASNC to GO was confirmed by SEM, TEM, FTIR, Raman, XPS, and TGA. After DASNCs attached to the reduced graphene (RGO), the aerogel skeleton became more robust, resulting in high mechanical properties. DASNC can effectively prevent irreversible self-stacking between graphene nanosheets; therefore, the electrochemical performance of reduced graphene oxide was fully realized, and the specific capacitance was increase from 198 to 316 F g −1 . The hybrid aerogels were also used to remove four dye contaminants. Results showed that DASNCs-RGO hybrid aerogels (SRGO) had high adsorption capacities toward rhodamine B (RB) and crystal violet (CV) due to the highly porous structure and high specific surface. The highest adsorption capacities toward RB and CV of SRGO were 539 mg g −1 and 318 mg g −1 . The results of adsorption kinetics showed that there was chemisorption mechanism interaction between the hybrid aerogels and dye contaminants during the adsorption process.

Green flexible electronics based on starch

“…Among the reported sustainable materials used in FEs, starch have advantages on the acceptable solubility in water, good property of film forming and relative low cost comparing with cellulose, lignin and proteins. Therefore, a lot of efforts have been put into the developments of FEs based on starch [37][38][39][40][41] , in which the starch usually appeared as films or gels. The starch films were often used as soft and transparent substrates because of the intrinsic good film-forming property of starch.…”

Adsorption of Malachite Green from Aqueous Solution Using Hydroxyethyl Starch Hydrogel Improved by Graphene Oxide

“…HES polymers require crosslinking to improve features like stability and sturdiness. In the literature in recent times, there are very few studies about GO-starch-based composites and some of these examined applications as membrane ltering [18], drug delivery system [19] and adsorption [20,21]. Another study reported a nanocomposite comprising starch, polyacrylamide and poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid) including GO layers for methylene blue adsorption [22].…”

Covalent Functionalization of Graphene Oxide with Fructose, Starch, and Micro-Cellulose by Sonochemistry

“…These graphemic materials are chemically grafted or covalently functionalized with other organic and inorganic molecules (nanohybrids) [ 5 ] to be used as raw material in the manufacturing of solar cells [ 6 ], battery electrodes [ 7 ], biosensors [ 8 ], and prostheses [ 9 ], among others [ 10 , 11 ], where graphite and GO considerably improve the performance of the products. Nanohybrids grafted with organic molecules, as starch and fructose, are used due to their biodegradation [ 12 , 13 ] and biocompatibility as material for antibiotic recovery in milk [ 14 ], manufacturing of antimicrobial films for foods [ 15 , 16 ], formulation of bio-nano-compounds [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], supercapacitors [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], fuel cells [ 27 ], water purification membranes [ 28 , 29 , 30 ], biosensors [ 31 , 32 ], adhesives [ 33 ], and bone implants [ 34 ]. To synthetize these GO/starch [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ] and GO/fructose [ 27 ] nanohybrids, chemical processes include exfoliated graphite by sonication in an aqueous medium or polar solvent for several hours.…”