Polymer brushes on graphene oxide for efficient adsorption of heavy metal ions from water

The pollution of heavy metal ions in water poses a serious threat to human being and ecosystems. Here, we report polyamidoxime (PAO) brush grafted graphene oxide (GO) as a highly efficient adsorbent for extraction of toxic metal cations from water. Surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization was used to grow polyacrylonitrile (PAN) brushes on GO, followed by conversion of the nitrile groups in PAN into amidoxime groups, which had high binding affinity toward heavy metal cations. The PAO brush grafted GO demonstrated significantly fast adsorption kinetics and large adsorption capacity. At optimal pH 5, the PAO brush grafted GO can achieve maximum adsorption capacities of 116.7 mg g^?1 for Pb(II), 258.6 mg g^?1 for Ag(I), 192.2 mg g^?1 for Cu(II), and 167.9 mg g^?1 for Fe(III), which were significantly larger than those of small molecule functionalized GO. Mechanism analysis suggested that the enhanced adsorption performance was due to the myriads of functional groups in PAO brushes that were easily accessible to metal ions because of the swelling of the polymer brushes in water. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48156.