Modification of Melamine Formaldehyde Foam by Graphene for Oil Sorption

Melamine formaldehyde (MF) is a kind of fire-retard and environmentally friendly material. In recent years, this material has been developed to create sorbent for clean-up of oil spills from water due to its high volume to weight ratio. Herein, MF foam is produced by microwave irradiation of MF resin synthesized in the laboratory. The MF foam has open-cell structure with average pore diameter of 350 m, density of 25 kg m-3 and porosity of 98 %. The obtained MF foam is then modified by graphene to switch surface property from hydrophilic to hydrophobic upon a simple dipping method.The oil sorption capacity of the graphene-coated MF foam is tested by common organic liquids such as benzene, chloroform, motor oil and crude oil. Results have indicated that the graphene-coated MF foam exhibits high sorption capacity (15-61 g/g) for oils and organic solvents, 2.2-4.5 times higher than that of commercial polypropylene material