Preliminary study on the preparation of graphene from coke with a combined chemical and physical routine

As a revolutionary material with optical, electrical and mechanical properties, graphene has high production costs in terms of materials science, micro-nano processing, energy, biomedicine and drug delivery. To explore the low-cost materials for the synthesis of carbon nanomaterials, a method for the affordable and facile fabrication by metallurgical coke fine was demonstrated. The demineralized coke ultrafine powder (< 10 µm) was oxidized, and then treated with a combination of thermal exfoliation and solvent exfoliation. The resulting carbon powder were characterized with microscopic morphology, the defects and type of carbon and the carbon structural order by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy (XPS), Raman Spectroscopy and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The graphene prepared by chemical-physical routine with demineralized metallurgical coke superfine powder exhibits similar characteristics to those prepared by graphite traditionally, which provides an economical and environmentally friendly method for the preparation of graphene materials.