Graphene oxide-mesoporous SiO2 hybrid composite for fast and efficient removal of organic cationic contaminants. (March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Czepa, Włodzimierz; Pakulski, Dawid; Witomska, Samanta; Patroniak, Violetta; Ciesielski, Artur; Samorì, Paolo
• Is Part Of: Carbon. Volume 158(2020)
• Page Start: 193
• Page End: 201
• Publication Date: 2020-03
• Subjects: Carbon -- Periodicals; Carbone -- Périodiques; Koolstof; Toepassingen; Electronic journals; 546.681
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2019.11.091
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0008-6223

Abstract

Abstract: In this study, we have developed a novel mesoporous SiO2 - graphene oxide hybrid material (SiO2 NH2 -GO) as highly efficient adsorbent for removal of cationic organic dyes from water. The fabrication of such a three-dimensional (3D) SiO2 NH2 -GO composite has been achieved via the condensation reaction between the amine units exposed on 3-aminopropyl-functionalized silica nanoparticles and the epoxy groups on surface of GO. As a proof-of-concept, SiO2 NH2 -GO was used for the removal of archetypical dyes from water and revealed outstanding maximum adsorption capacity towards methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl violet (MV) at pH 10 reaching 300, 358 and 178 mg g −1 for MB, RhB and MV, respectively, thus outperforming the neat components of composite, i.e. GO and SiO2 . Moreover, the adsorption process revealed that ∼99.7% of MB, RhB and MV have been removed in only 3 min thereby highlighting the superior nature of SiO2 NH2 -GO composite with respect to most of graphene oxide-based adsorbents of organic dyes. Finally, the composite was used in solid phase extraction (SPE) as column packing material, for continuous water purification, thus highlighting the great potential of SiO2 NH2 -GO for the large-scale removal of cationic dyes from aqueous solutions. Graphical abstract: Image 1