Water-Based Route for Dopamine and Reduced Graphene Oxide Aerogel Production

2023-11-29
Kavak, Öznur
Can, Barış
Bat, Erhan
Water pollution caused by domestic waste oil and accidents with oil/organic spill needs immediate remediation, as such a pollution causes serious threats to health and the environment. Development of absorbent materials for the treatment of oil-polluted waters in a green and energy-efficient manner is highly desired. In this study, a green and simple strategy is proposed to prepare aerogels by hydrothermal reaction of graphene oxide (GO) dispersions using dopamine (DOPA) as the cross-linker. Concentrations of GO and DOPA were changed to determine their effects on absorption capacities. Aerogels produced had low densities ranging from 2.90 to 4.34 mg/cm3. Various organics, diesel oil, and sunflower oil were used to evaluate the absorption capacity of aerogels. It was observed that even with a mild thermal reduction at 150 °C, aerogels exhibited very high absorption capacities of up to 445 mg/mg. The produced aerogels showed high reusability (80%) and structural stability even after 10 absorption/desorption cycles. They possess great potential in oil/organic removal and water treatment based on their high absorption capacities and performances in separating organics/liquids from water.
Citation Formats
Ö. Kavak, B. Can, and E. Bat, “Water-Based Route for Dopamine and Reduced Graphene Oxide Aerogel Production,” ACS Omega, vol. 8, no. 49, pp. 46728–46737, 2023, Accessed: 00, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/107574.