Efficient adsorptive removal of dibenzothiophene by graphene oxide-based surface molecularly imprinted polymer†
Abstract
Molecularly imprinted polymers on GO nanosheets (MIPs/GO) for desulfurization are synthesized using dibenzothiophene (DBT) as template, methacrylic acid (MAA) as monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-linker. The formation of this hybrid material is verified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric and atomic force microscopy analysis. The adsorption results show that the prepared MIPs/GO exhibit excellent adsorption capacity (up to 181.9 mg gā1 at 298 K) and fast mass transfer and binding kinetics for DBT. The kinetics and isotherm data can be well described by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model and the Freundlich isotherm, respectively. Competitive adsorption experiments demonstrate that MIPs/GO show higher affinity toward target molecule DBT than toward structural analogue benzothiophene.