Clean water generation with switchable dispersion of multifunctional Fe3O4-reduced graphene oxide particles

With the increased need for clean water and decreased supply of fresh water, purification of contaminated water can provide clean water that supplements the fresh water from nature. Physical adsorption, photo-degradation and solar-driven evaporation processes are promising ways to generate clean water with minimum environmental impact. However, different purification process requires different dispersion state of the treating agent to maximize its performance. Herein, we demonstrate that Fe3O4-reduced graphene oxide (MrGO) particles with switchable dispersion can be used as the multifunctional water treating agents to efficiently purify contaminated water through different processes. Under homogenously dispersed nanofluid mode, the MrGO particles have large exposed surface areas and can efficiently remove organic dye pollutants through physical adsorption. The uniform dispersion state also favors high contact efficiency facilitating decontamination of high concentration of organic compounds through solar-driven photocatalytic degradation by the MrGO particles. The excellent magnetic response of MrGO particles not only allows for easy collection of the treating agent from water but also enables assembly of MrGO at the air-water interface with external magnets. Under such interfacial assembled mode, clean water can be distilled out of the contaminated solution with high evaporation efficiency of 74.7% under simulated natural solar radiation. This work demonstrates that dispersion state can be used as another important means to optimize water purification performances.