Abstract
With popular development and usage of graphene oxides (GO), GO may be discharged into environment and probably cause environmental contaminations. In this work, two commercially available different activated carbons (ACs) were used as adsorbents for GO and methyl orange (MO, as a control) elimination. AC1 possesses more oxygen-containing functional groups, while AC2 has much larger Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area. The external factors towards GO removal by ACs were systematically investigated via batch experiments, including the contact time, ionic types and concentration, pH value, temperature. AC1 exhibited a ~4 times higher removal GO efficiency than that of AC2 while AC2 adsorbed ~55 times of MO than AC1, indicating activated functional groups on the surface of ACs played an important role in the GO adsorption on ACs and BET surface area of ACs was the key factor in the adsorption of MO on ACs. Commercial ACs with more functional groups would be a promising material for the efficient removal of GO from wastewater.
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•Two different kinds of activated carbons (ACs) were chosen to remove GO.•AC1 with more functional groups can remove GO efficiently.•AC2 with higher surface area can remove methyl orange efficiently.•Functional groups matter more than surface area in the GO removal by AC.