Preparation of Stable Hydrophilic Polyethyleneimine Cross-Linked Graphene Oxide/Titanium Dioxide Membranes for Dye Separation

Abstract

An excellent novel laminar and hierarchical polyethyleneimine cross-linked graphene oxide/titanium dioxide (GO–TiO2–PEI) membrane was successfully prepared by vacuum filtration technology using polyethyleneimine (PEI) as the cross-linking agent and a GO–TiO2 nanocomposite as the substrate. The resultant membrane (GO–TiO2–PEI) displayed a favorable antifouling performance with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and showed good hydrophilicity and wettability, with a static water contact angle of 13.2∘. The stability of the GO–TiO2–PEI membrane in aqueous solution obviously improved with the cross-linking of PEI compared with that of the GO and GO–TiO2 membranes. The GO–TiO2–PEI membrane also exhibited a satisfactory water flux of 48.6[Formula: see text]L m[Formula: see text] h[Formula: see text] bar[Formula: see text]. The GO–TiO2–PEI membrane exhibited a good performance for effectively separating different dyes including methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RB), methyl orange (MO), sunset yellow (SY), new coccine (NC) and amaranth. All the above results suggested that the GO–TiO2–PEI membrane could be used as an excellent stable hydrophilic membrane for efficiently separating dyes from aqueous solution.