Graphene-based macrostructures for the treatment of contaminated water: optimization for a more efficient water reuse

• Autor(a) principal: Bessa, Ana Rita Cardoso de
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/33948
• topic: Water treatment; Graphene structures; Sorption; Mercury

Currently, water contamination is an environmental problem that has high impact in several places of the world. Water is a finite resource, and its contamination comes from both natural sources and human activity. In aquatic organisms, the toxic action of trace metals can cause the death of species and/or harmful biochemical effects. Traditional methods used in water treatment have low efficiency in the removal of these metals, generate toxic residues and are expensive methods. It is therefore necessary to develop new technologies, which with reduced costs and regenerative capacity, have high capacity to remove the toxic metals and do not generate hazardous substances. The objective of this work is to evaluate the removal of mercury through its sorption by three-dimensional graphene structures. The three-dimensional graphene structures used in this work consisted of graphene oxide aerogels functionalized with polyethylene (GOPEI) or chitosan (GOCH). These structures were evaluated in relation with their efficiency in the removal of mercury. All these materials presented excellent performance in the removal of mercury in ultra-pure water. In real waters, the GOPEI aerogel was the one that presented the most promising results in the removal of mercury, and the selectivity of the latter for mercury was demonstrated in mineral water intended for human consumption and in natural and synthetic seawater contaminated with mercury.