Synthesis of a superhydrophilic coral-like reduced graphene oxide aerogel and its application to pollutant capture in wastewater treatment

Abstract

Inspired by nature, a zeolitic-imidazolate framework-8@reduced graphene oxide (ZIF-8@rGO) aerogel was developed to remove tetracycline (TC) from water. The ZIF-8 nanoparticles grown on the rGO aerogel act like the many tentacles of a coral to hunt TC, and the rGO aerogel not only acts as a substrate but also acts like the belly of the coral, which can accommodate a large number of pollutants. Benefiting from these advantages, the ZIF-8@rGO aerogel can decontaminate TC, and showed an excellent adsorption capacity of 1776.26 mg g−1. Based on the experimental tests and characterization analysis, we speculated that the adsorption mechanism between TC and ZIF-8@rGO aerogel was mainly related to the hydrogen-bonding interactions, π-π interaction and electrostatic attraction. This discovery could be transformative for the removal of different types of pollutants by means of adjusting the functional groups of the materials and their composite technology.