An Overview of the Synthesis and Prospects of Grafted Graphene Oxide Nanohybrids

Hybrids of graphene oxide (GO) are emerged as multifunctional nanomaterials since the realization of their technological potential in EMI shielding, water treatment, sensors, catalysis, and more. They can be formed by combining organic species onto a GO substrate. Recently, the graft polymerization method has been used to develop nanohybrids of GO with varieties of monomers such as aniline, acrylonitrile, glycidyl methacrylate, and 4-vinyl pyridine at PIEAS. Graft polymerization can be done by chemical or radiation methods. This process offers quite a good control to tailor the properties of desired product by optimizing the reaction parameters. If possible chemical modifications of nanohybrids will also open new applications in different research areas. An overview of research recent work carried out at PIEAS on the graft polymerization of monomers on a GO substrate is presented. This work describes the published work on the successful synthesis of the grafted nanohybrids and the importance of optimizing the reaction conditions to obtain good yield of desired product. The practical prospects of the grafted GO nanohybrids in selected applications has also been presented. These polymer grafted GO nanohybrids can be seen as a green materials in many potential applications.