Preparation of Stable Hydrophilic Polyethyleneimine Cross-Linked Graphene Oxide/Titanium Dioxide Membranes for Dye Separation

An excellent novel laminar and hierarchical polyethyleneimine cross-linked graphene oxide/titanium dioxide (GO–TiO 2 –PEI) membrane was successfully prepared by vacuum filtration technology using polyethyleneimine (PEI) as the cross-linking agent and a GO–TiO 2 nanocomposite as the substrate. The resultant membrane (GO–TiO 2 –PEI) displayed a favorable antifouling performance with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and showed good hydrophilicity and wettability, with a static water contact angle of 13.2 ∘ . The stability of the GO–TiO 2 –PEI membrane in aqueous solution obviously improved with the cross-linking of PEI compared with that of the GO and GO–TiO 2 membranes. The GO–TiO 2 –PEI membrane also exhibited a satisfactory water flux of 48.6[Formula: see text]L m[Formula: see text] h[Formula: see text] bar[Formula: see text]. The GO–TiO 2 –PEI membrane exhibited a good performance for effectively separating different dyes including methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RB), methyl orange (MO), sunset yellow (SY), new coccine (NC) and amaranth. All the above results suggested that the GO–TiO 2 –PEI membrane could be used as an excellent stable hydrophilic membrane for efficiently separating dyes from aqueous solution.