Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering Research and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cherd

Synthesis and functionalization of graphene oxide

(GO) for salty water desalination as adsorbent

Marzieh Zahed, Parisa Sadat Parsamehr, Maryam Ahmadzadeh Tofighy,

Toraj Mohammadi ∗
Research and Technology Centre for Membrane Processes, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science
and Technology (IUST), Narmak, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this article, graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized by the Hummers and the modified
Received 24 May 2018 Hummers methods and functionalized with chitosan and used as adsorbents for salty water
Received in revised form 24 July 2018 desalination application. The results demonstrated that GO prepared via the modified Hum-
Accepted 11 August 2018 mers method has higher adsorption capacity of sodium ions than GO prepared via the
Available online 20 August 2018 Hummers method. Also, functionalization with chitosan improved sodium ions adsorption
capacity of the GO prepared via the modified Hummers method from 770.2 to 830.3 mg/g at
Keywords: an initial sodium ion concentration of 40,000 mg/l. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms and
Adsorption two kinetic models were applied to fit the experimental data. Regeneration performance of
Desalination the prepared adsorbents was also studied. The results demonstrated that both isotherms
Carbon nanomaterials and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model match the obtained experimental data very
Graphene oxide (GO) well. It was found out that the chitosan functionalized GO with higher adsorption capacity
Functionalization and better regeneration performance can be considered as an effective adsorbent for salty
water desalination.
© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Desalination is a process that extracts dissolved mineral components
from salty water such as sea water, brackish water and treated water.
The seas, the oceans, and the ices in the poles cover about 71% of
the earth’s surface and contain 99% of the earth’s water. Less than
1% of the earth’s water is fresh and suitable for drinking. The water
of the seas and the oceans is salty and not directly useable. There-
fore, in order to overcome the water shortage, special processes are
needed to desalinate the salty water (Sadrzadeh and Mohammadi,
2008; Mohammadi and Kaviani, 2003; Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2010;
Belessiotis and Delyannis, 2001; Hadadin et al., 2010; Kaldellis and
Kondili, 2007).
There are many conventional desalination methods including pre-
cipitation, oxidation, reduction, ion exchange, membrane filtration,
and adsorption. Considering from ease of process, efficiency and econ-
omy point of view, adsorption is regarded as one of the most promising
and widely used methods (Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2010; Rao et al.,
2007; Bele et al., 2016). Adsorption efficiency directly depends on char-
acteristics of the used adsorbent like specific surface area and surface
functional groups (active adsorption sites). In recent years, tremendous
effort has been undertaken to develop new adsorbents for wastewa-
ter treatment. Carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
and graphene and its derivatives such as graphene oxide (GO) have
attracted considerable attention as good candidates for adsorbent
materials due to their unique physical and chemical properties (Kyzas
et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2011; Banerjee et al., 2017).
Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon based nanomaterial that
is composed of a planar monolayer of sp2 -hybridized carbon atoms
arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern. Pristine graphene, GO, and
reduced graphene oxide (RGO) are various forms of graphene used in
different applications. Graphene requires special oxidation processes
to introduce hydrophilic functional groups to improve its ion adsorp-
tion capacity. GO is the oxidized form of graphene that can be produced
by graphite oxidizing. After graphite oxidation, oxygen molecules inter-
sperse the graphite carbon layers. By increasing the interplanar spacing
between the layers by exfoliation, graphite oxide changes into GO. The
preparation of GO from graphite using the Hummers and the modi-

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: torajmohammadi@iust.ac.ir (T. Mohammadi).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cherd.2018.08.022
0263-8762/© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365
Fig. 1 – Schematic of GO synthesis by (a) the Hummers and (b) the modified Hummers methods.
fied Hummers methods introduce many oxygen containing functional
groups on the GO surface (hydroxyl and epoxy groups on the basal
plane and carboxylic acid groups at the edges of GO). These oxygen
containing functional groups on GO make a significant contribution to
its hydrophilicity and high negative charge density that are essential
for desalination application. Compared to other adsorbents including
activated carbon (AC), fly ash, sewage sludge ash, zeolites, biomateri-
als, recycled alum sludge, manganese oxides, peanut hulls, kaolinite,
resins, rice husk, clay, sawdust and CNTs, GO with its unique physical
and chemical properties such as large theoretical specific surface area
(about 2620 m2 /g), surface ␲–␲ interaction, high negative charge den-
sity and hydrophilicity is regarded as the most promising absorbent
to adsorb various heavy metal ions (Thangavel et al., 2018; Paulchamy
et al., 2015; Dai, 2002; Loryuenyong et al., 2013; Hegab and Zou, 2015;
Ramesha et al., 2011; Gopalakrishnan et al., 2015; Zaaba et al., 2017).
Therefore, GO should exhibit high adsorption capacity in salty water
desalination (sodium ions removal from sea water).
As reported in literature, functionalization of GO can increase its
adsorption capacity, improve its adsorption selectivity and facilitate
separation of the spent GO from water (Peng et al., 2017). For exam-
ple, introduction of ethylene diaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) groups to
GO via silanization could dramatically increase its active adsorption
sites i.e. EDTA-GO has more sites than GO (Madadrang et al., 2012).
Additionally, poly (amidoamine) (PAMAM) was used for GO functional-
ization via grafting, and the functionalized GO demonstrated excellent
adsorption capacity toward heavy metal ions such as Cu(II), Zn(II),
Fe(III), Pb(II) and Cr(III) (Yuan et al., 2013). For this aim, chitosan (CS), a
partially deacetylated derivative of chitin, with exceptional properties,
such as high hydrophilicity, wide availability and biocompatibility, good
film forming ability, moderate chemical resistance, and its abundant
hydroxyl and amino functional groups as reactive sites can be used
for GO functionalization. Covalently bonded chitosan on GO combine
the innate characteristics of chitosan and the unique features of GO
(Bustos-Ramírez et al., 2013; Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2015; Nguyen
et al., 2017). No previous published study on sodium ions removal from
water using chitosan functionalized GO as adsorbent could be found in
the literature.
In this research, application of GO synthesized by the Hummers and
the modified Hummers methods and the chitosan functionalized GO
as adsorbents for salty water desalination was investigated.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
Graphite powder (<50 ␮m), acetone, malic acid, NaNO3 ,H2 SO4
(98%),KMnO4 , HCl (37%), H2 O2 (30%) and NaCl (purity ≥ 99.99%)
were purchased from Merck and chitosan (degree of deacety-
lation 75–85%) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich.
359
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. GO preparation
GO was synthesized by the Hummers and the modified Hum-
mers methods. According to the Hummers method, graphite
(2 g) and NaNO3 (2 g) were mixed in 50 ml H2 SO4 (98%), and
the mixture was stirred for 2 h in an ice bath at a temperature
of about (0–5 ◦ C). Then KMnO4 (6 g) was added to the mixture
slowly to keep the temperature under 15 ◦ C during KMnO4
addition. The ice bath was then removed and the mixture
was stirred at 35 ◦ C for 2 days. Next 100 ml water was dropped
gently, and the temperature increased to 98 ◦ C, rapidly. Also
the mixture color was changed to brown. It was then diluted
with additional 200 ml of water. The reaction was completed
by addition of 10 ml H2 O2 to react with additional KMnO4 .
Then, the mixture was washed with HCl (10%) and deion-
ized (DI) water by rinsing and centrifugation. The product was
dried under vacuum at room temperature and GO powder was
obtained.
In the modified Hummers method, graphite (2 g) and
NaNO3 (2 g) were mixed in 90 ml H2 SO4 (98%) in an ice bath.
Then after adding KMnO4 (12 g) slowly, 184 ml water was added
to the mixture slowly. After 2 h, the ice bath was removed
and the mixture was stirred at 35 ◦ C for 2 h. Then the mix-
ture temperature was increased to 98 ◦ C, and when it was
cooled to room temperature, it was stirred for 2 h. Finally, it
was treated with 40 ml H2 O2 and 200 ml water. Finally, the mix-
ture was washed with HCl (10%) and DI water by rinsing and
centrifugation and the product was dried under vacuum at
room temperature (Paulchamy et al., 2015). Fig. 1 shows the dif-
ferent steps of the GO preparation procedure by the Hummers
and the modified Hummers methods.
The morphology and structure of the GO prepared by the
Hummers and the modified Hummers methods were charac-
terized by SEM (Tescan, A VEGA), XRD (Bourevestnik, Dron-8)
and FTIR (Shmadzu, IR solution 8400S) analysis.
2.2.2. Functionalization of GO by Chitosan
125 mg Chitosan, 37.5mgKMnO4 , 50 mg malic acid and 0.75 ml
H2 SO4 were added to 10 ml solution containing DI water and
100 mg GO that was synthesized by the modified Hummers
method. The mixture was stirred for 3 h at 60 ◦ C and then
washed with acetone and dried for 24 h at room temperature
(Bustos-Ramírez et al., 2013).
2.2.3. Adsorption procedure
Batch adsorption experiments were carried out using solu-
tions with sodium ion concentrations of 5000, 10,000, 20,000,
30,000 and 40,000 mg/l prepared from NaCl in DI water. In all
360 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365
Fig. 2 – SEM images of (a) the Hummers and (b) the modified Hummers synthesized GO.
the experiments, 100 mg of the prepared adsorbents were dis-
persed in 25 ml of the solutions (with natural pH ∼ 6) at 25◦ C.
Each experiment was performed twice and the average results
were reported with max error percent of about 5%. Atomic
adsorption spectroscopy was used to measure the sodium ion
concentration of the solutions. After removing the adsorbents
from the solutions, at equilibrium, the amounts of adsorbed
ions were obtained using the following equation:
(C0 − Ce )V
qe = (1)
w
Where qe is the equilibrium adsorption uptake (mg/g), C0 is
the initial sodium concentration (mg/l), Ce is the equilibrium
sodium concentration (mg/l), V is the solution volume (l) and
w is the adsorbent mass (g).
2.2.4. Regeneration studies
For regeneration study, after adsorption equilibrium at initial
sodium ions concentration of 10,000 mg/l, the adsorbents were
retrieved and dried at 60◦ C for 2 h, and then dispersed in DI
water. After the solutions attained equilibrium, the sodium
ion concentrations were measured and desorption percentage
was calculated as follows:
qe (de)
DE (%) = × 100 (2)
qe (ad)
whereqe (ad) and qe (de) are the amounts of adsorption and
desorption at equilibrium, respectively.
2.2.5. Batch kinetics studies
Kinetics studies were carried out with the similar procedure
as the adsorption experiments with initial sodium ions con-
centration of 10,000 mg/l. The aqueous samples were taken
at preset time intervals and the sodium ions concentration
was similarly measured. The adsorption amount at time (t), qt
(mg/g), was calculated using the following equation:
(C0 − Ct ) V
qt = (3)
w
where C0 is the initial sodium ions concentration (mg/l), Ct
(mg/l) is the sodium ions concentration at time (t), w is the
mass of dry adsorbent used (g) and V is the volume of sodium
ions solution (l).
3. Results and discussion
SEM images are usually used to study structure and surface
morphology of nanomaterials. Fig. 2 shows SEM images of the
synthesized GO via the Hummers and the modified Hummers
methods. As can be observed, the platelet-like form of GO is
seen in the both images.
XRD is a technique to determine distance between layers
of crystalline materials. After oxidation, the layers distances
of the starting graphite and the product (GO) are highly dif-
ferent and the XRD spectrum is a conclusive proof of the
degree of oxidation. XRD patterns of the synthesized GO via
the Hummers and the modified Hummers methods as shown
in Fig. 3 display 2 peaks at 11.3◦ and 11.7◦ , so the correspond-
ing interlayer spacing of the synthesized GO is 7.8 and 7.6 Å,
respectively. The interlayer spacing of the starting graphite is
about 3.4 Ȧ (inset in Fig. 3 a) that indicates the prepared GO via
two methods are completely oxidized and the exfoliation pro-
cess increases the interlayer spacing (Paulchamy et al., 2015;
Gopalakrishnan et al., 2015).
FTIR is a method to examine the obtained oxygen con-
taining functional groups after oxidation of graphite flakes.
FTIR spectrums of the prepared GO by the Hummers and
the modified Hummers methods, as seen in Fig. 4, show that
the synthesized GO via both methods are functionalized suc-
cessfully with different types of oxygen containing functional
groups. The spectrums confirm presence of the C O bond in
the alkoxy group (1060 cm−1 ), the C O bond in epoxy group
(1226 cm−1 ), the unoxidized CC bonds (1620 cm−1 ), the car-
bonyl, and the starching vibration of carboxylic acid (COOH)
groups (1733 cm−1 ), and the hydroxyl groups (3359 cm−1 ). It is
clear that both of the spectrums are similar, except one peak
at 1431 cm−1 in the modified Hummers method that indicates
the C OH bonding (Lai et al., 2016; He et al., 2015).
For better comparison, FTIR spectra of the neat chitosan,
the prepared GO by the modified Hummers method and the
chitosan functionalized GO (before and after adsorption pro-
cess) are shown in Fig. 5. As can be observed, the peaks of the
chitosan functionalized GO FTIR spectrum (curve c) are similar
to those of the chitosan and the GO spectra (curves a and b).
The peaks at 1733 cm−1 and 1620 cm−1 of curve b are assigned
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365
Fig. 3 – XRD spectrums of (a) the Hummers and (b) the
modified Hummers synthesized GO.
Fig. 4 – FTIR spectrums of (a) the Hummers and (b) the
modified Hummers synthesized GO.
to the COOH groups and the CC bands of GO, respectively.
In curve c, both of the two peaks are downshifted compared
to GO in curve b, due to the hydrogen bonding between GO
and chitosan. The results imply the existence of the interac-
tion between GO and chitosan. As can be observed in curve d,
new peaks appear after the adsorption process as the result of
interactions between sodium ions and the functional groups
of the chitosan functionalized GO (Bustos-Ramírez et al., 2013;
Donia et al., 2007).
Table 1 shows specific surface area of the prepared GO by
the Hummers and the modified Hummers methods and also
the chitosan functionalized GO. As can be observed, the GO
361
Fig. 5 – FTIR spectra of (a) the neat chitosan, (b) the
modified Hummers synthesized GO, (c and d) the chitosan
functionalized GO before and after adsorption process,
respectively.
Table 1 – Specific surface area of the prepared
adsorbents.
Adsorbents Specific surface area (S, m2 /g)
Hummers GO 1330
Modified Hummers GO 1228
Chitosan functionalized GO 1085
Fig. 6 – Effect of initial sodium ions concentration on
equilibrium adsorption uptake.
specific surface area decreases after functionalizaion with chi-
tosan.
The adsorption behavior of sodium ions onto the as-
synthesized and the functionalized GO was investigated. The
equilibrium adsorption uptake of the as-synthesized and the
functionalized GO at different initial sodium ions concen-
trations is shown in Fig. 6. As can be observed, adsorption
uptake of the prepared adsorbents increases significantly with
increasing initial sodium ions concentration. With increas-
ing initial ions concentration from 5000 to 40,000 ppm, the
adsorption capacity at equilibrium increases from 275.5 to
656.3 mg/g, 292.7 to 770.2 and from 344.7 to 830.3 mg/g for the
GO synthesized by the Hummers and the modified Hummers
methods and the chitosan functionalized GO, respectively. It
362 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365

can be explained that the impetus of initial high concentration

is larger than that of initial low concentration, and as a result,
adsorption onto the as-synthesized and the functionalized
GO is a diffusion-based process. In higher ions concentration,
the driving force of concentration gradient becomes larger,
and this hence results in more ions adsorption (Tofighy and
Mohammadi, 2015, 2011).
As can be observed in Fig. 6, the chitosan functionalized GO
exhibits greater sodium ions adsorption capacity than the as-
synthesized GO. Adsorption capability of sodium ions for the
prepared adsorbents can be ordered as GO prepared via the
Hummers method < GO prepared via the modified Hummers
method < chitosan functionalized GO. This can be due to the
fact that the sodium ions adsorption capacity of GO does not
directly relate to its specific surface area but strongly depends
upon its surface total acidity including oxygen containing
functional groups (Rao et al., 2007; Tofighy and Mohammadi,
2015, 2011, 2012). Chemical interaction between sodium ions
and surface functional groups of GO is mainly responsible for
the adsorption. Increasing the number of surface functional
groups of GO improves the adsorption capacity of sodium ions
(Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2010; Rao et al., 2007; Tofighy and
Mohammadi, 2015, 2011; Lu et al., 2006; Lu and Liu, 2006; Ho
et al., 1995; Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2012).
The obtained data for sodium ions adsorption onto the as-
synthesized and the functionalized GO were analyzed using
the Freundlich and the Langmuir adsorption isotherm models
(Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2010, 2015, 2011).
The Freundlich isotherm assumes that the adsorption
occurs on a heterogeneous surface by multilayer adsorption
and the amount of adsorbate adsorbed increases infinitely Fig. 7 – (a) TheFreundlich and (b) the Langmuir isotherms.
with increasing concentration (Tofighy and Mohammadi,
2010). It can be expressed by the following general form equa- An essential characteristic of Langmuir isotherm can be
tion: expressed by a dimensionless constant called equilibrium
parameter:
qe = KF Cne (4)
1
RL = (8)
1 + KL C0
Or by the following linear form equation:

where C0 is the highest initial sodium ions concentration

log qe = n log Ce + log KF
Where Ce is the equilibrium concentration of sodium ions
(mg/l), qe is the adsorption uptake of sodium ions (mg/g) and n
and KF are the Freundlich parameters related to the adsorption
intensity and the adsorption capacity, respectively.
The Langmuir isotherm model assumes monolayer sorp-
tion onto a solid surface with uniform adsorption energies and
a finite number of identical sites (Tofighy and Mohammadi,
2010). It can be expressed by the following general form equa-
tion:
qmon KL Ce
qe =
1 + KL Ce
Or by the following linear form equation:
Ce 1 Ce
= +
qe KL qmon qmon
Where Ce is the equilibrium concentration of sodium ions
(mg/l), qmon is the amount of adsorption corresponding to the
monolayer coverage. KL is the Langmuir constant which is
related to the adsorption energy.
(5) (mg/l) and KL is the Langmuir constant. The value of RL
indicates the isotherm type to be either favorable (0 < RL < 1),
unfavorable (RL > 1), linear (RL = 1), or irreversible (RL = 0).
The slope and the intercept of each linear plot in Fig. 7(a)
and (b) were used to calculate the Freundlich and the Langmuir
parameters. The calculated Freundlich and Langmuir param-
eters and the correlation coefficient (R2 ) values are listed in
Table 2. As can be observed, the dimensionless constant val-
ues, (RL ), lie within the favorable limit between 0 and 1. The qm
values calculated using the Langmuir isotherm are 625.0, 769.2
and 833.3 mg/g for the prepared GO by the Hummers and the
modified Hummers methods and the chitosan functionalized
GO, respectively which is consistent with the experimental
(6)
results. The values of KF calculated using the Freundlich model
are large, indicating that the prepared adsorbents have high
affinity toward sodium ions. The constant value of KF is higher
for adsorption of sodium ions onto the chitosan functionalized
GO which is consistent with the experimental observations
(7)
(Fig. 6). Deviation of the n values from unity indicates a non-
linear adsorption that takes place on heterogeneous surfaces.
The n values are smaller than 1, which indicates favorable
adsorption of sodium ions onto the prepared adsorbents.
These results and also the correlation coefficient (R2 ) values
demonstrate that both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365 363

Table 2 – The Freundlich and the Langmuir parameters.

Model Langmuir isotherm Freundlich isotherm
2
qmon (mg/g) KL (l/mg) RL R n KF (mg/g) R2

GO (Hummers) 625.000 1.294 × 10−4 0.162 0.976 0.369 13.152 0.992

GO (modified Hummers) 769.230 1.176 × 10−4 0.175 0.972 0.362 16.106 0.992
Chitosan functionalized GO 833.333 1.442 × 10−4 0.148 0.975 0.354 19.588 0.993

Table 3 – Pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models parameters at initial ion concentration of
10,000 mg/l.
Adsorbents qe,exp (mg/g) Pseudo-first-order kinetic model Pseudo-second-order kinetic model

qe,cal (mg/g) k1 (h) R 2

qe,cal (mg/g) k2 × 10−3 (g/g h) R2

GO (Hummers) 382.543 489.454 0.426 0.819 438.908 22.595 0.985

GO (modified Hummers) 418.824 563.768 0.445 0.934 480.987 20.014 0.986
Chitosan functionalized GO 479.441 591.076 0.469 0.852 530.349 17.776 0.973

agree well with the obtained experimental data (Tofighy and

Mohammadi, 2010, 2015, 2011; Lu and Liu, 2006; Ho et al.,
1995; Stafiej and Pyrzynska, 2007; Yang et al., 2009; Jiang et al.,
2009; Zarghami et al., 2015; Li et al., 2015; Konicki et al., 2017;
Wang, 2016; Li et al., 2013; Özturk and Bektas, 2004; Tofighy
and Mohammadi, 2012).
In order to analyze the adsorption mechanism of sodium
ions onto the prepared adsorbents, two kinetic models includ-
ing the pseudo-first-order and the pseudo-second-order were
applied to fit the experimental data under initial sodium ion
concentration of 10,000 mg/l. The rate constant of adsorp-
tion can be determined using the pseudo-first-order equation
given by Lagergren (1898) as: Fig. 8 – Sodium desorption percentage of the prepared
adsorbents at natural pH of about 6, at 25 ◦ C.
k1
ln (qe − qt ) = lnqe − t (6)
2.303
from the pseudo-second-order kinetics model. Accordance of
where qe and qt are the adsorption uptake (mg/g) at equilib- the experimental data with the pseudo-second-order kinetic
rium and at time t(min), respectively and k1 (min−1 ) is the rate model indicates that adsorption of sodium ions onto the pre-
constant of first-order adsorption. pared adsorbents is controlled by chemical adsorption. In
The pseudo-second-order equation (Ho and McKay, 1999) chemical adsorption, it is assumed that the adsorption capac-
based on equilibrium adsorption can be expressed as: ity is proportional to the number of active adsorption sites
(oxygen containing functional groups) on the adsorbent sur-
t 1 1 face (Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2015, 2011; Özer and Dursun,
= + t (7)
qt k2 q2e qe 2007; Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2012).
In order to realize the practical use of the prepared
where k2 (g/mg min) is the rate constant of the second-order adsorbents in seawater desalination applications, reversibil-
adsorption. The correlation coefficient (R2 ) values and the cal- ity, which reflects to some extent the cost of adsorption, must
culated kinetic parameters of the two kinetics models are be considered (Tofighy and Mohammadi, 2012). Fig. 8 shows
listed in Table 3. As can be observed, the correlation coefficient desorption percentage of the prepared adsorbents. As can
values of the pseudo-second-order kinetics model are higher be observed, the chitosan functionalized GO shows higher
than those of the pseudo-first-order kinetics model. Also, desorption percentage than the others and can be employed
the experimental qe values are closer to qe values calculated repeatedly for salty water desalination. Also, it should be men-

Table 4 – Comparison of the maximum monolayer ion adsorption capacities of the chitosan functionalized GO and the
other adsorbents documented in literature.
Adsorbents Adsorbed ions Maximum monolayer adsorption Conditions Refs
capacity, q (mg/g)

Chitosan functionalized GO (this work) Na(I) 830.3 pH 6, T 298 K [this work]

EDTA-GO Pb(II) 508.5 pH 6, T 318 K (Cui et al., 2015)
Hg(II) 268.4
Cu(II) 301.2
EDTA-GO Pb(II) 479.0 pH 6, T 298 K (Madadrang et al., 2012)
GO-NH2 Co(II) 116.3 pH 6, T 298 K (Fang et al., 2014)
CGGO Pb(II) 120 pH 6, T 298 K (Zhang et al., 2011)
TET-MRGO Cu(II) 209.1 pH 6, T 293 K (Chen et al., 2015)
GO-ACF U(VI) 298 pH 5.5, T 298 K (Chen et al., 2013)
364 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 3 8 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 358–365
tioned that the chitosan functionalized GO can be removed
from the salty solutions after adsorption process much easier
than the others.
Table 4 presents a comparison of the maximum monolayer
ion adsorption capacities of the chitosan functionalized GO
and the other GO-based adsorbents documented in literature.
As can be observed, the chitosan functionalized GO has larger
adsorption capacity compared with the others based on the
data obtained from the literature.
4. Conclusion
In this research, application of GO synthesized by the Hum-
mers and the modified Hummers methods and also chitosan
functionalized GO as adsorbents for salty water desalina-
tion was investigated. It was found out that the adsorption
capacity of GO increases with increasing initial sodium ions
concentration. Adsorption capability of sodium ions for the
used adsorbents can be ordered as GO prepared via the
Hummers method < GO prepared via the modified Hummers
method < chitosan functionalized GO. The results demon-
strated that functionalization of GO with chitosan can improve
sodium ions adsorption capacity. Therefore, the chitosan
functionalized GO with high adsorption capacity and good
regeneration performance is an effective adsorbent for salty
water desalination. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms and
two kinetic models were used to describe adsorption behav-
ior of sodium ions by the prepared adsorbents. The results
demonstrated that both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms
and pseudo-second-order kinetic model match the experi-
mental data very well.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Iran National Science Foun-
dation (INSF) for supporting the research (Grant No. 95013065
and 96008182).
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