Synthesis of carboxymethyl cellulose-reduced graphene oxide aerogel for efficient removal of organic liquids and dyes

Three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide aerogel (rGA) are of great interests in wastewater treatment due to its unique properties such as lightweight, high porosity structure and high specific surface area. However, rGA fabricated by self-assembly in the liquid phase still suffers from lipophilicity and low mechanical strength to be not suitable for the adsorption of organic liquids and dyes and reused. Here, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as 1D material was added during gelation of graphene oxide flakes to prepare carboxymethyl cellulose-graphene oxide aerogel (CMC-rGA) by a facile hydrothermal method. CMC nanochains can wrap graphene nanosheets to improve surface wettability to be hydrophilic and stabilize 3D structure to enhance mechanical property. CMC-rGA exhibits excellent removal ability for organic liquids and dyes. Moreover, CMC-rGA possesses excellent absorption performance after recycling. The rapid adsorption follows a pseudo-second-order adsorption kinetic and monolayer Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The result demonstrates that CMC-rGA can be potentially used as promising materials for wastewater treatment and environmental protection.