Carbon materials play considerable role towards energy and environmental applications in a fast growing world. Energy storage and waste water treatment are the two major challenges in the global scenario. Exfoliated graphite, a worm like highly porous carbon nanostructured material exhibits excellent properties and is a potential candidate for many applications. Here, we report rapid and efficient preparation of exfoliated graphite with manganese oxide materials by using microwave irradiation technique, which is one of the most efficient energy sources. The as prepared material was characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. The material showsexcellent electrochemical performance with high specific capacitance value of 166.6 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g under 1M Na₂SO₄ electrolyte solution. Also, the material shows unusual removal performance of various organic dyes such as congo red (CR) and indigo carmine (IC) from water. The effect of process parameters i.e., pH, contact time, and initial dye concentration on removal of dyes under aqueous solutions was investigated. The adsorption isotherms (Langmuir model), kinetics models (pseudofirst and pseudo-second-order) were used to study the dye adsorption mechanism. It is suggested that the mechanism of adsorption depends mainly on the random distribution of pores, as well as, surface area. The maximum adsorption capacity reaches 222.2 and 204.1 mg/g for IC and CR dyes at equilibrium under aqueous solutions.

Keywords: Carbon materials, porous materials, exfoliated graphite, adsorption, supercapacitors.