Graphene Oxide-Facilitated Reduction of Nitrobenzene in Sulfide-Containing Aqueous Solutions

The main objective of this study was to test the possibility that graphene-based nanomaterials can mediate environmentally relevant abiotic redox reactions of organic contaminants. We investigated the effect of graphene oxide (GO) on the reduction of nitrobenzene by Na2S in aqueous solutions. With the presence of GO (typically 5 mg/L), the observed pseudofirst-order rate constant (k(obs)) for the reduction of nitrobenzene was raised by nearly 2 orders of magnitude (from 7.83 x 10(-5) h(-1) to 7.77 x 10(-3) h(-1)), strongly suggesting reaction mediation by GO. As reflected by the combined spectroscopic analyses, GO was reduced in the beginning of the reaction, and hence the reduced GO (RGO) mediated the reduction of nitrobenzene. It was proposed that the zigzag edges of RGO acted as the catalytic active sites, while the basal plane of RGO served as the conductor for the electron transfer during the catalytic process. Furthermore, changing the pH (5.9-9.1) and the presence of dissolved humic acid (10 mg TOC/L) were found to greatly influence the catalytic activity of RGO. The results imply that graphene-based nanomaterials may effectively mediate the reductive transformation of nitroaromatic compounds and can contribute to the natural attenuation and remediation of these chemicals.