Contamination of water by many pollutants especially heavy metals are creating risks to public health and the environment. The highest priority pollutants are considered to include Hg2+, Pb2+, Cr6+, and As5+. In this work, we report the development of a multi-functional graphene oxide (GO) adsorbent for the high efficient removal of heavy metal ions such as Hg2+, Pb2+, Cr6+, and As5+. Several novel GO-based adsorbents containing carboxylic acid (COOH-GO), imino (Imino-GO) and amidinothiourea (ADTU-GO) groups have been synthesized and evaluated for the removal of heavy metal ions from water. The maximum adsorption capacities of heavy metals on the ADTU-GO nanosheets are found to be 624.0, 101.5, 63.0, 37.0, and 19.0 mg/g for Hg2+, Pb2+, Cr6+, Cu2+, and As5+, respectively. Furthermore, the ADTU-GO nanosheets are able to selectively separate and remove Hg2+ from a multicomponent solution containing Pb2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, Cd2+, and Ni2+. The ADTU-GO adsorbent displays a selectivity order for the removal of the metal ions according to: Hg2+ &gt;&gt; Pb2+ &gt; Cu2+ &gt; Cd2+ &gt; Ni2+ &gt; Zn2+. The results also indicate that the ADTU-GO nanosheets can be regenerated using different eluents. These novel adsorbents are excellent candidates for the large scale removal of metal ions in industrial water treatments.

Effective removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions by chemically modiefied graphene oxide nanosheets

254th National Meeting (2017)

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