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Hydrophobic-Polymer-Grafted Graphene Oxide Nanosheets as an Easily Separable Adsorbent for the Removal of Tetrabromobisphenol A
journal contribution
posted on 2014-11-18, 00:00 authored by Xubo Zhao, Peng LiuHydrophobic
polymer brushes have been grafted from graphene oxide nanosheets (GO)
via the facile surface-initiated redox radical polymerization of tert-butyl acrylate (tBA) from the GO with cerium ammonium
nitrate (CAN) as an oxidant. After the hydrophobic surface modification,
the poly(tert-butyl acrylate) (PtBA)-grafted graphene
oxide nanosheets (GO-PtBA) could still be dispersed in water because
of the remaining oxygen-containing groups but deposited within 40
min. The feature makes it an easily separable adsorbent for environmental
pollutants. For example, tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) could be removed
from aqueous solution via hydrogen bonds (between hydroxyl groups
of TBBPA and hydroxyl and carboxyl groups of GO) and π–π
interactions (between the benzene ring of TBBPA and GO), with an adsorption
capacity of 22.2 mg g–1 at pH 7.0. The TBBPA-adsorbed
GO-PtBA could be deposited completely within 30 min, and the adsorbed
TBBPA could be easily desorbed with ethanol, demonstrating its good
recyclability.