3D printed graphene aerogels set for water treatment

The researchers at the University at Buffalo, New York have used a proof-of-concept direct ink writing 3D printing technique and subsequent freeze-drying to prepare graphene-biopolymer aerogels for water treatment.

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"The goal is to safely remove contaminants from water without releasing any problematic chemical residue," said study co-author Nirupam Aich, PhD, assistant professor of environmental engineering at the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "The aerogels we've created hold their structure when put in water treatment systems, and they can be applied in diverse water treatment applications."

The study - 3D printed graphene-biopolymer aerogels for water contaminant removal: a proof of concept – has been published in the Emerging Investigator Series of the journal Environmental Science: Nano.

An aerogel is a light, highly porous solid formed by replacement of liquid in a gel with a gas so that the resulting solid is the same size as the original. Graphene is a nanomaterial formed by elemental carbon and is composed of a single flat sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a repeating hexagonal lattice.