COTTON – GRAPHENE BASED NANO-COMPOSITES AS A SEMI-SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL FOR OIL AND CHEMICAL CLEANUP

Abstract

The world is facing severe ecological and environmental problems due to the oil spills and the discharge of organic solvents into the environment. This problem has led to development of different tools and high performance materials that can both effectively and efficiently absorb these discharges from water bodies. Moreover, greener and economical methods to produce these materials are on high demand. Herein, we demonstrate a novel method of attaching graphene to functionalized cotton cellulose. The hydrophobic graphene coated cellulose with a contact angle of 144.76 o (with water) shows great oil absorption with a contact angle less than 10o towards oil and non-polar organic solvents. The absorption experiments performed exhibited an absorption capacity of 28.32, 39.91, 42.32, 40.89, 22.1, 27.67, 34.69 and 39.01 for dodecane, paraffin oil, pump oil, mineral oil, hexane, toluene and crude oil respectively. In addition, the graphene coated cellulose revealed excellent reusability, great selectivity and a high capacity. By the combination of cost effective combination, eco-friendly nature and excellent oil absorption performance, the graphene coated cotton is a promising candidate with a strong potential for large scale removal of oils from water and their environmental remediation.