Graphene Oxide/Chitosan Aerogel Microspheres with Honeycomb-Cobweb and Radially Oriented Microchannel Structures for Broad-Spectrum and Rapid Adsorption of Water Contaminants

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 9; no. 26; pp. 21809 - 21819
• Main Authors: Yu, Ruomeng, Shi, Yongzheng, Yang, Dongzhi, Liu, Yaxin, Qu, Jin, Yu, Zhong-Zhen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 05.07.2017
• Subjects: graphene oxide; adsorption; aerogels; water treatment; recyclability
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b04655

Multifunctional graphene oxide (GO)/chitosan (CS) aerogel microspheres (GCAMs) with honeycomb-cobweb and radially oriented microchannel structures are prepared by combining electrospraying with freeze-casting to optimize adsorption performances of heavy metal ions and soluble organic pollutants. The GCAMs exhibit superior adsorption capacities of heavy metal ions of Pb­(II), Cu­(II), and Cr­(VI), cationic dyes of methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B, anionic dyes of methyl orange and Eosin Y, and phenol. It takes only 5 min to reach 82 and 89% of equilibrium adsorption capacities for Cr­(VI) (292.8 mg g–1) and MB (584.6 mg g–1), respectively, much shorter than the adsorption equilibrium time (75 h) of a GO/CS monolith. More importantly, the GCAMs maintain excellent adsorption capacity for six cycles of adsorption–desorption. The broad-spectrum, rapid, and reusable adsorption performance makes the GCAMs promising for highly efficient water treatments.