A facile and mild route to synthesize ultralight and flexible 3D functionalized graphene

Three-dimensional (3D) graphene with macrostructure has attracted extensive research interests due to its interconnected network and remaining extraordinary properties of the graphene. Currently, several methods have been reported to prepare 3D structural graphene. However, the prepared 3D graphene by the current methods suffers from insufficient ability to be free-standing or poor flexibility. Therefore, in this paper, a facile and mild method was developed to prepare 3D functionalized graphene by template-assisted hydrothermal carbonization reaction based on the renewable glucose as the raw material. The merit of the method is that the whole process is simple and environmental-friendly. More importantly, the as-prepared 3D functionalized graphene possesses monolithic and porous network structure, which exhibits outstanding flexibility and ultralight properties.