Graphene, a two-dimensional carbon material, has attracted tremendous research interest in recent years due to its exceptional properties, such as excellent electrical, mechanical and thermal properties. Meanwhile, various kinds of novel functional materials based on Graphene oxide are employed in different fields like solar cell, sensor and catalysis. With the increasing number of catalysts during synthesizing graphene-based composites, the development of catalysis science and technology will surely be promoted. This paper reviews recent advances in the preparation and structure of graphene oxide, especially its applications in catalysis fields.

Heteropoly acide(HPA), as one kind of solid-super acid catalysts, has been researched and applied extensively. Using SBA-15 and ZSM-5 as carriers, HPA catalysts with different types and contents were applied in this work for the hydrolysis of dimethyl ether(DME). It had been found that ZSM-5 was a proper carrier, and its supported phosphotungstic acid exhibited relatively high catalytic activity in this low-temperature hydrolysis reaction.

Highly ordered macro- and meso- porous carbon materials were prepared in a facile nanocasting approach using colloidal crystals silica and SBA-15 as starting template, respectively. The synthesized macroporous carbon templated from colloidal silica shows a honeycomb-like morphology and three-dimensionally interconnected networks of macrospores of about 400 nm in diameter. The resulting mesoporous carbon derived from SBA-15 templates exhibits high specific area (1206m2/g), large pore volume (1.097cc/g) and uniform pore size distribution (3.64 nm). These carbon materials were employed to aerobic oxidation of glucose as support of Au NPs catalyst. 2wt% Au NPs/mesoporous carbon shows high catalytic activity due to highly dispersion of Au NPs resulting from the confinement effects of mesoporous carbon.

Optimum working conditions of 11 working fluids under different heat source temperatures in an organic Rankine cycle were systematically investigated. Cycle efficiency of each fluid was compared at their optimal operating conditions were then analyzed. R141b appears to be the best choice when the heat source temperature is around 200oC. Heptane is suggested the suitable working fluids for the ORC system when the heat source is 300oC.

Impregnation and deposition-precipitation (DP) methods were employed for the preparation of Au nanoparticles supported on SBA-15, and the influences of various reductants were systematically surveyed. The dispersion and particle size of gold loaded on SBA-15 were determined by XRD, SEM and TEM. It has been found that reductants have effect on the size and dispersion of Au NPs, resulting in different catalytic properties for aerobic oxidation of glucose. The Au NPs on SBA-15 using KBH4as reductant was approximately 5-6 nm, which exhibited excellent catalytic activity.