Effective adsorption of 2,4-dichlorophenol on hydrogenated graphene: kinetics and isotherms

The effective adsorption capability of a hydrogenated graphene (H-Gr) was demonstrated. The H-Gr was firstly prepared by heating graphene (Gr) in a hydrogen flow at 1,000 °C. The specific surface area, layer number, zeta potential, surface defects, surface compounds groups and elemental ratio of H-Gr were investigated. Taking 2,4-dichlorophenol as a target pollutant, the adsorption ability of H-Gr was evaluated. The results showed that the adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order equation well. For the adsorption isotherms, the equilibrium data of H-Gr were found to fit to Langmuir model, which was different from the Freundlich model of Gr. The adsorption capacity of H-Gr was high to 287.01 mg/g, almost three times as much as that of Gr, which was benefit from the increase of specific surface area and zeta potential. This work suggests that H-Gr may be a potential candidate for the adsorption of aromatic compounds from water and has great prospect for practical application.