Highly efficient green synthesis and membrane applications of graphene oxide

Graphene oxide (GO), an important derivative of graphene, is highly desired for printing electronics, optoelectronics, catalysis, energy storage, separation membranes, biomedicine, and composites. However, the present synthesis methods depend on the reactions of graphite with strong oxidizing mixtures containing concentrated acids, and therefore suffer from explosion risk, serious environmental pollution, and long reaction time up to hundreds of hours.