Functionalization of 4-aminothiophenol and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane with graphene oxide for potential dye and copper removal.

In this work, 4-aminothiophenol and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane were firstly used to functionalize graphene oxide (GO) in order to promote the sorption efficiencies of methylene blue (MB) and copper (Cu(2+)). Characterization experiments illustrated that sulfydryl group (SH) and amino group (NH2) were existed onto 4-aminothiophenol modified GO (GO-SH) and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane modified GO (GO-N), respectively. Adsorption isotherm results showed that the maximum adsorption capacities of MB by GO-SH and GO-N were 763.30 and 676.22mg/g, which was much higher than original GO 455.95mg/g. For Cu(2+) adsorption, the maximum adsorption capacities by GO-SH and GO-N were 99.17 and 103.28mg/g, suggesting that the engineered GO exhibited greater Cu(2+) sorption ability than original GO 32.91mg/g. Both MB and Cu(2+) removal rates increased with pH and adsorbent dosage increased, while the sorption rates weakly reduced with increasing ionic strength. The modification by SH and NH2 would not only increase the sorption sites, but also cause chelation with heavy metals, and thus improving the sorption capacities of MB and Cu(2+).