All research themes

Research

Graphene for water purification

Graphene oxide adsorbents and graphene-filled membranes that remove dyes, salts and other pollutants from water, designed for high capacity and for reuse over many cycles.

Left: electron micrographs of millimetre-sized graphene oxide aerogel particles shaped like a donut, a jellyfish and a sphere, with their porous surfaces and cross-sections. Right: methylene blue adsorption capacity staying close to 1000 mg per gram over five reuse cycles.
Graphene oxide–carboxymethyl cellulose vortex-ring aerogel particles (left) keep their dye-adsorption capacity over five cycles of use and regeneration (right). Reproduced from M. I. Hossain, K. Nie, M. Iliut and A. Vijayaraghavan, Journal of Molecular Liquids (2026), Fig. 3 and Fig. 9(b), doi:10.1016/j.molliq.2026.129483, under CC BY 4.0; panels rearranged.

Industrial wastewater carries dissolved dyes and other organic pollutants that are harmful even at very low concentrations. The group makes graphene oxide vortex-ring particles, millimetre-sized porous aerogels whose donut shape gives high adsorption efficiency. Functionalising them with carboxymethyl cellulose lets the same particles remove both cationic and anionic dyes (methylene blue and methyl orange), and they can be regenerated and reused.

With chemical engineering colleagues, the group also adds functionalised graphene oxide to polymer membranes: in polyethersulfone it moves the membranes from ultrafiltration to nanofiltration, and in PVDF it improves membrane distillation for desalination.

This theme contributes to the goals above. More on the goals at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals site. The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.

Publications 6