Graphene-based adsorbents for water remediation by removal of organic pollutants: Theoretical and experimental insights

Graphene-based materials have emerged as promising candidates as adsorbents for water treatment. The high surface area, low production costs, large porosities and robustness makes them excellent materials for adsorption studies and removal of toxic compounds such as pesticides, dyes, aromatic polar and non-polar compounds, nitro compounds, halogenated compounds, antibiotics, etc. from aqueous solutions. In recent years, there have been many structural modifications in the 2-D graphene sheet for synthesizing superior materials such as graphene-metal composites, metal oxide composites, bio-composites, hydrogels, etc. for improving the structural properties and widen its applications. In this review, we have incorporated the examples from both experimental and density functional theory studies (DFT) for water remediation by removal of toxic organic pollutants using graphene-based materials from the recent literature, and have further outlined the challenges and future perspectives in this direction. (C) 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.