Synthesis of freestanding amorphous giant carbon tubes with outstanding oil sorption and water oxidation properties

Abstract

Giant carbon tubes (GCTs) have emerged as a new group of carbon-based material which can exhibit many interesting properties benefiting from the unique physicochemical structure and thus have aroused increasing research interest. Herein, we report a new templated growth approach for the scalable synthesis of amorphous GCTs, which had uniform wall thickness and were ultra-long in length, with the length determined by the template dimension and being demonstrated all the way up to 1 m. The GCTs significantly outperformed other carbon-based sorbents in terms of their oil sorption capacities, oil–water separation capabilities and recyclability properties, and had excellent water oxidation electrocatalysis activity. These interesting properties of the prepared GCTs were discussed to determine the underlying mechanisms and were correlated to their unique structural parameters.