A facile strategy for preparation of magnetic graphene oxide composites and their potential for environmental adsorption

Abstract

Over the past decades, graphene oxide (GO) and its composites with organic and inorganic components have gradually become one of the most popular carbon nanomaterials, on account of multitudinous advantages, including great conductivity, excellent thermal stability and large specific surface area. In particular, the magnetic GO based composites have been extensively investigated for various applications owing to their combined advantages from both GO and magnetic nanoparticles. Although many strategies have been developed for preparation of magnetic GO based composites, a facile and efficient strategy is still rarely reported. In this work, we developed a direct, ultrafast, green and non-toxic strategy for scalable production of GO–Fe3O4 hybrids for the first time. Compared with conventional preparation methods, this strategy only requires a simple one-step reaction and would produce no pollutants in the whole reaction process. Furthermore, it could convincingly demonstrate the successful preparation of GO–Fe3O4 hybrids with outstanding properties through a series of characterization techniques. Finally, the outstanding performance of GO–Fe3O4 hybrids in adsorption experiments has been also demonstrated. Results indicated that these GO–Fe3O4 composites are potentially used for environmental adsorption.