Graphene from glucose coated silica sand for water purification applications

Abstract

Nowadays, graphene has attracted scientific community's attention due to its outstanding properties. In this paper, we reported the absorption capacity of Tuban silica sand to dyes in drinking water that could be improved by graphene coating onto the silica surface. Coatings of sand with graphene from sugar through the hydrothermal-vapor heating method were conducted at a temperature of 700 °C. The pattern of X-ray diffraction (XRD) of the as-prepared silica sand shows the existence of a quartz crystalline phase, with a weight percentage of 98%. In contract with that XRD profile, the graphene-coated sand (GCS) XRD pattern tends to be amorphous due to the presence of amorphous carbon. Furthermore, the UV-Vis test reveals a significant reduction in peak absorption intensity of methylene blue by silica sand and the GCS material.