The invention belongs to the field of carbon nanomaterials, and particularly relates to a low-cost preparation process for preparing three-dimensional porous graphene. According to the invention, the selected carbon source takes the waste coal gangue as a basic raw material so that resource reutilization of the waste coal gangue is realized, materials can be saved, and energy consumption can be reduced. The metal catalyst is added, so that the graphitization process is accelerated, the graphite temperature is reduced, the graphitization degree is increased, the interlayer spacing is increased, intercalation is easier, and the quality of graphene obtained by stripping is higher. In-situ self-assembly is carried out by using a graphene oxide aqueous solution as a precursor, so that stacking among graphene sheet layers is effectively reduced, and excellent performance of graphene is retained. The three-dimensional porous graphene with relatively high quality is prepared by adopting a low-cost preparation process and a low-cost carbon source, and can be prepared in a large scale so that research and development of downstream products such as pollutant adsorption, resistance type gas sensors, lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors, modified cement concrete and the like are facilitated.