Fabrication of macroporous polystyrene/graphene oxide composite monolith and its adsorption property for tetracycline

Macroporous polystyrene microsphere/graphene oxide (PS/GO) composite monolith was first prepared using Pickering emulsion droplets as the soft template. The Pickering emulsion was stabilized by PS/GO composite particles in-situ formed in an acidic water phase. With the evaporation of water and the oil phase (octane), the Pickering emulsion droplets agglomerated and combined with each other, forming a three-dimensional macroporous PS/GO composite matrix with excellent mechanical strength. The size of the macrospores ranged from 4 mu m to 20 pm. The macroporous PS/GO composite monolith exhibited high adsorption capacity for tetracycline (TC) in an aqueous solution at pH 4-6. The maximum adsorption capacity reached 197.9 mg g(-1) at pH 6. The adsorption behaviour of TC fitted well with the Langmuir model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. This work offers a simple and efficient approach to fabricate macroporous GO-based monolith with high strength and adsorption ability for organic pollutants. (C) 2016 Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.