An electro-Fenton system, which consists of a Pt gauze anode and a commercial carbon felt cathode, is commonly employed to generate in situ hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl radical and regenerate ferrous catalyst for glyphosate degradation (a widely used herbicide in Vietnam) in aqueous solution. The absorbance measurements used to determine the glyphosate concentration during the electrolysis proved that glyphosate was degraded by pseudo-first-order kinetic. The influence of pH, current density, catalyst concentration and initial content of the glyphosate on mineralisation efficiency were studied by monitoring the total organic carbon (TOC) and hydrogen peroxide concentration during electrolysis. The results show that the maximal removal percentage of glyphosate was 91.91% with applied current density of 10 mA cm⁻², pH 3, 0.1 mM Fe²⁺, 0.05 M Na₂SO₄, and 0.1 mM glyphosate in 40 min. The degrading rate constant of glyphosate degradation was calculated to be k_app = 0.063 min⁻¹. In this 91.91% removal, 81.65% of glyphosate was mineralised and the remainder consists of intermediates produced during the electro-Fenton process.

Graphite is a versatile material used in various fields, particularly in the power source manufacturing industry. Nowadays, graphite holds a unique position in materials for anode electrodes in lithium-ion batteries. With a carbon content of over 99% being a requirement for graphite to serve as an electrode material, the graphite refinement process plays a pivotal role in the research and development of anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. This study used three different processes to purify spherical graphite through wet chemical methods. The spherical graphite after the purification processes was analysed for carbon content by using energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy and was evaluated for structural and morphological characteristics through X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analyses. The analyses results indicate that the three-step process via H₂SO₄–NaOH–HCl cleaning can elevate the carbon content from 90% to above 99.9% while still maintaining the graphite structure and spherical morphology, thus enhancing the surface area of the material for anode application. Furthermore, the spherical graphite was studied for electrochemical properties when used as an anode for Li-ion batteries using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge–discharge (GCD) measurements. The results demonstrated that the purification process significantly improves the material’s capacity with a specific capacity of 350 mAh/g compared to the 280 mAh/g capacity of the anode made of spherical graphite without purification.

In this work, graphene nanoplates (GNPs) were successfully prepared via direct chemical exfoliation from natural graphite. The properties of prepared GNPs were investigated using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The resultant GNPs had a low bulk density of 0.015 g mL⁻¹, C content of 99.6%, a lateral diameter of 5–15 µm, and thickness of <15 nm, respectively. The absorption capacity of the GNPs for a range of oils and organic solvents including pump oil, polydimethylsiloxane oil (PDMS), dioctyl phthalates (DOP) oil, olive oil, bean oil, mazut oil, xylene, ethanol, and ethylene glycol (EG) was evaluated. The effects of the sorption conditions such as the absorption time (sorption kinetics), temperature, and aging manner (static, stirring, and ultrasonic) on the absorption capability of the GNPs were also investigated. It could be seen that the GNPs revealed extremely high absorption capacities for oil and organic solvents, reaching 21–42 times their own weight only after 2 min of absorption at room temperature, which were found to be much higher than those shown by various commercially available absorbents.