Synthesis and functionalization of graphene oxide (GO) for salty water desalination as adsorbent

In this article, graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized by the Hummers and the modified Hummers methods and functionalized with chitosan and used as adsorbents for salty water desalination application. The results demonstrated that GO prepared via the modified Hummers method has higher adsorption capacity of sodium ions than GO prepared via the Hummers method. Also, functionalization with chitosan improved sodium ions adsorption capacity of the GO prepared via the modified Hummers method from 770.2 to 830.3 mg/g at an initial sodium ion concentration of 40,000 mg/l. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms and two kinetic models were applied to fit the experimental data. Regeneration performance of the prepared adsorbents was also studied. The results demonstrated that both isotherms and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model match the obtained experimental data very well. It was found out that the chitosan functionalized GO with higher adsorption capacity and better regeneration performance can be considered as an effective adsorbent for salty water desalination.