Graphene oxide(GO) is a common graphene derivative with large specific surface area and abundant oxygen-containing functional groups. Thus, GO is a perfect adsorbent to remove pollutants from water. However, pristine GO sheets are in micrometer range and difficult to be recycled after use. In addition, owing to the negative charge of GO sheets, they only indicated very limited adsorption capacity towards anionic pollutants. To achieve high removal efficiency of both anionic and cationic pollutants, positively charged poly(ethyleneimine)(PEI) was associated with GO to fabricate GO/PEI (GP) aerogels. Surface charge of the constructed GP aerogels was tuned by changing the ratio between GO and PEI. The constructed GP aerogels are stable not only in acidic and basic aqueous environments, but also in methanol, acetonitrile, methylbenzene, acetone and N,N-dimethyl formamide. Methyl orange (MO) and methylene blue (MB) were utilized as model pollutants to investigate the adsorption capability of the GP aerogels through adsorption kinetic experiments at different pH values. The GP aerogel showed high adsorption capacity for anionic MO (330 mg g<sup>-1</sup>) at a pH 2.0 while for cationic MB (240 mg g<sup>-1</sup>) at a pH10.5. It seems the electrostatic attraction force dramatically improve the adsorption capacity of the GP aerogel against both anionic and cationic dyes. This aerogels may be used as versatile sorbents for various charged pollutants removal.

Fabrication of graphene oxide/poly(ethyleneimine) aerogel with controlled surface charge for both anionic and cationic dyes removal

254th National Meeting (2017)

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