Recent advances on nanocellulose-graphene oxide composites: a review

Abstract Nanocellulose (NC)/graphene oxide (GO) composites are attractive materials with a range of unique features obtained from the integration of NC and GO. These materials have high potential use in various sectors such as biomedicine, wastewater remediation, sensor/biosensor technology, and energy storage/conversion. The simple functionalization and modification of NC or GO afford an opportunity for tailoring these materials for anticipated applications. In wastewater treatment applications, they can be employed as reliable adsorbents for the removal of different pollutants, such as metals, dyes, oils, and pesticides as well as sensors for the detection and monitoring of these pollutants. Besides that, NC/GO composites can be applied as catalysts for catalytic degradation for a wide variety of pollutants. These materials have been also reported to be applicable in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, antibacterial and biosensing. Energy storage applications such as supercapacitors NC/GO-based materials were also utilized. This review summarizes NC/GO hybrid fabrication, characterization, and their application in different fields, i.e. sensing, energy storage, and wastewater remediation. It also covered a broad overview of the status of integrating GO with nanocellulose materials, i.e. bacterial cellulose, cellulose nanofibrils, and cellulose nanocrystals. We concluded with the challenges and outlook for NC/GO-based composites.