Graphene oxide-covered melamine foam utilizing as a hybrid foam toward organic dye removal and recyclability

Abstract

Graphene-based adsorbents have been attracted extensive interest in recent years. Herein, graphene oxide-covered melamine foam (GO-covered MF) was designed and prepared by a mild submerge-covering method with the support of a super-hydrophilic melamine framework, showing its adsorption performances for various organic dyes. The structure morphology as well as chemical, thermal and mechanical properties of the as-obtained hybrid foam (HF) were further determined for the possible structure changes after covering the GO sheets on the MF framework. Moreover, the HF exhibited an excellent ability for organic dye adsorption application, and which was well fitted in the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir models corresponding to a chemical adsorption and a mono-layer approach during the adsorption process. The maximum adsorption capacity by using the as-obtained HF corresponded to 258.56 ​mg ​g−1 (methylene blue), 233.22 ​mg ​g−1 (Rhodamine B), 206.92 ​mg ​g−1 (methyl orange), and 184.93 ​mg ​g−1 (Congo red), which are competitive with that of other graphene-based absorbents. In particular, the HF could be reused without a noticeable degradation of organic dye removal performance. As such, the HF prepared in this study can become an encouraging candidate for practical application owing to the reliable recyclability and low-cost.