Facile synthesis and characterization of thiol-functionalized graphene oxide as effective adsorbent for Hg(II)

In this work, we report the synthesized and characterization of mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT) functionalized graphene oxide (GO) as a novel adsorbent material for the adsorption of Hg(II). This adsorption process could be realized with GO and MBT acting as host-guest in the first instance followed by the subsequent complexation of Hg(II) with MBT, the soft-soft interaction between Hg(II) & sulphur enhances the effective complexation. The prepared graphene-based adsorbent was characterised by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, Powder-X-ray diffraction (Powder-XRD), Transmission electron microscopes (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV-vis spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). The capability of ICP-MS for Hg(II) adsorption was extensively studied under different optimal parameters, the developed method was successfully applied to mercury adsorption from water samples. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.