Synthesis and applications of graphene oxide from agricultural wastes: a review

Abstract

Agricultural wastes are abundant in nature but are often classified as less valuable or entirely useless, depending on the type of waste, mode of production, and/or the communities involved. These wastes are mostly dumped, neglected, destroyed, or even burnt, leading to various forms of environmental pollution and degradation. This review highlights the usefulness and viability of various agricultural wastes and by-products for the synthesis and production of graphene oxide. In addition to this, the review elucidates on the different methods of synthesis using agro-wastes including but not limited to modified/improved Hummer’s methods, chemical vapour deposition (CVD), electrochemical methods; characterization techniques such as FTIR, SEM-EDX, XRD, BET, CHNS and Raman Spectroscopy to determine the functional groups, topography, morphology and elemental compositions, crystallinity, defects and surface areas; applications of graphene oxide in various fields such as medical, biological, environmental remediation, storage, packaging and many other chemical and industrial processes, limitations/challenges and industrial scalability.