ABSTRACT
Graphene oxide (GO), an important derivative of graphene, with a variety of active oxygen-containing groups (hydroxyl, carboxyl and epoxy) on its surface is easy to be functionalized to obtain adsorbent with high adsorption capacity. To date, the adsorption behaviour of organic pollutants by functionalized GO adsorbents have been extensively studied, but there has been no systematic review regarding the functionalization method of GO for the purpose to remove organic pollutants from wastewater. The leading objective of this review is to (i) summarize the functionalization strategies of GO for organic pollutants removal (covalent functionalization and non-covalent functionalization), (ii) evaluate the adsorption performance of functional GO towards organic pollutants by taking aromatic pollutants and dyes as examples and (iii) discuss the regeneration property and adsorption mechanism of functional GO adsorbent. In addition, the problems of existing studies and future research directions are also identified briefly.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
![](/cms/asset/9f816969-d0da-46e5-9f50-8c125f54ca04/tent_a_2053754_uf0001_oc.jpg)
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (No. ZR2021QE272), Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province, China (No. tsqn201812091) and Higher Educational Science and Technology Program of Shandong Province, China (No. 2020KJD003).
Data availability statement
The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).