An environmentally friendly and simple method for producing multi-layer exfoliated graphene in mass production from pencil graphite and its utilization for removing cadmium from an aqueous medium

For practical applications of graphene sheets in a variety of fields, mass production of high-quality graphene sheets is necessary. Herein, we reported a cost-effective, green, and simple approach to synthesizing mass production exfoliated graphene (EG) flakes employing electrochemical exfoliation of pencil graphite in neutral aqueous electrolytes. Pencil graphite cores of different grades were applied as anode and cathode electrodes and exposed to the electrolyte solution at a different voltage. Several parameters were examined and optimized, including pencil grade (2,4,6,8 B), applied voltage (10, 15, 20, 30 V), different inorganic electrolytes ((NH4)(2)SO4, Na2SO4, NaNO3, NaCl, and CH3COONa), and the concentration of electrolytes. The optimal condition was chosen by considering the mass of produced graphene and the conductivity of the graphene solution. The optimal conditions were as follow: pencil grade: 6B; applied voltage: 10 V; electrolyte type: Na2SO4; electrolyte concentration: 0.1 M. Under these conditions, the production yield was > 95% within 3 h and 9 min. The EG was characterized by utilizing FT-IR, XRD, Raman spectroscopy, FE-SEM, Cyclic Voltammetry, and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). Characterization indicates that the synthesized EG had an XRD peak at 2 theta = 26.6 degrees and an I-D/I-G ratio of 0.36. Furthermore, the EG showed good conductivity when tested by cyclic voltammetry and EIS whereas the R-2 values were 985.8 and 76.3 omega for bare GCE and EG/GCE, respectively. In addition, EG effectively removed cadmium (Cd(II)) with an adsorption level of 8.72 mg/g. The results from this study suggest that EG can be scaled up and commercialized in an environmentally friendly and low-cost manner, especially in low-income countries, and using it to rectify metal ions.