The preparation and exfoliation of graphite oxide at low temperatures (near room temperature) to produce exfoliated graphite (EG) instead of rapid heating to a high temperature (conventional process) are reviewed. The exfoliation by microwave irradiation, electrochemical exfoliation and surfactant-assisted exfoliation of graphite are also included because these techniques can be applied under ambient atmosphere, although last two techniques were mainly applied for thinning the graphite flakes to obtain “graphene” flakes. The applications of the resultant exfoliated graphite (EG) for oil/water separation, adsorptive removal of the environment pollutants and microwave shielding are shortly reviewed.

Exfoliated graphite was found to sorb selectively a large amount of heavy oil, about 80 g of heavy oil floating on water per 1 g of exfoliated graphite, which is highly possible to be applied to recovering spilled heavy oil. Sorption capacity, selectivity and kinetics of exfoliated graphite were reviewed. The possibility of recovery of heavy oil from exfoliated graphite and recycling of both recovered heavy oil and exfoliated graphite was also discussed. Its sorption performance was compared with other materials which were reported to show sorption of heavy oil.