Idrossido di potassio come agente di formazione di pori in membrane da ossido di grafene per la bonifica delle acque

This thesis is focused on nanoporous membranes derived from graphene oxide (GO) via chemical activation with potassium hydroxide (KOH) and modified with polymeric binders, in order to build an adapt material suitable for the treatment of polluted waters. Water purification is becoming an emergent problem of our time, since it is turning out to be clear water resources are decreasing and will not be able to sustain human demand in the near future. The causes of this matter of fact are various: population intense growth, industrial utilization of seas waters also for energy necessities and emerging pollution of drinking sites are just the main of them. Synthesis and characterization of the just-made product have been performed in the laboratories of the Chemistry Department of Aalborg University (Denmark) under prof. Vittorio Boffa's control, while the measurement of gas adsorbivity (BET) has been conducted in prof. Giuliana Magnacca's laboratory, located in the University of Turin. About synthesis, we made use of Hummer's modified method, which is the one most widely utilized nowadays. Instead, concerning characterization we performed several types of analysis: aside from the upsaid BET, TGA (also hyphenated with a FTIR), DSC, SEM and XRD. These allowed us to calculate the activation energy for the reaction between KOH and reduced GO (rGO) and partially investigate its mechanism. Moreover, porous rGO membranes' permeance was tested with a lab-made system and SEC.