Novel insights into graphene oxide-based adsorbents for remediation of hazardous pollutants from aqueous solutions: A comprehensive review

Graphene oxide (GO) is one of the most promising materials having broader applications in energy, storage, optics, electronics biology, and chemistry. It contains different oxygen groups (hydroxyl, carboxyl epoxy groups), that have the potentials to form complexes with different metal ions and organic contaminants through coordination, hydrogen bonding, and electrostatic interaction, which is a benefit to its prospective applications in environmental pollution treatment and control. Different methods for producing carboxyl-saturated GO-based adsorbents open up new opportunities in green technology, such as energy storage, wastewater remediation, and nuclear waste utilization. This review brings different GO synthesis methods, including bottom-up and top-down techniques. Different properties and structures of GO by various analytical techniques are also discussed. Efforts have also been made to cover the diverse applications of GO-based adsorbents in device fabrication and wastewater treatment. In addition, the techno-economic feasibility of GO as a bottom-up or top-down cost approach was also discussed.