Recovery of light-reduction graphene oxide materials from soluble- graphene-oxide-containing wastewater for applying in solid pulse laser devices

Abstract Recovery of useful chemicals or materials from wastewater and waste is promising green engineering for reducing pollution and generating new functional materials. In this paper, zinc oxide (ZnO) was used as a photo-catalyst to recover light-reduction soluble-graphene-oxide (LRSGO) from soluble-graphene-oxide (SGO)-containing wastewater. The 72.65% of SGO particles in wastewater were reduced to LRSGO materials, which could be applied in optical devices. Organic pollutants and 27.35% of SGO particles in wastewater were simultaneously degraded to give CO2 and H2O in the photo-catalysis procedure. Therefore, wastewater containing SGO particles and organic pollutants was treated to give clear water and optical materials. FT-IR and XPS spectra show that LRSGO contains only one kind of functional groups –OH on its surface. Optical experiments suggest that LRSGO is good optical materials for fabricating pulse laser devices. Compared with graphene, signal intensity of the solid laser fabricated by LRSGO would be strong, moreover, pulse duration (3.5 ns) of the solid laser fabricated by LRSGO would be narrow compared with GO. This paper suggests an environment-friendly method of recovery of LRSGO from wastewater to acquire optical materials for solid laser devices.