In this paper, graphene oxide/cellulose membranes were prepared in order to perform effective adsorption of heavy metal ions: cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, cadmium and lead.

Graphene oxide (GO) has an excellent adsorption capacity toward metal ions. Therefore, it is widely recognized as an auspicious material for fabrication of membranes applied in metal ion separation. However, GO membranes are not stable in aqueous solution because of electrostatic repulsion between GO nanosheets which are negatively charged. This paper shows that stable GO membranes can be easily obtained by the noncovalent interaction of GO with oxidized carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The experiment also shows that the GO/CNTs membranes can be used for the effective adsorption of metal ions. The kinetic data, adsorption isotherms, competitive adsorption experiment, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicate that the adsorption of metal ions is based on chemisorption. The membranes are remarkably durable in acidic, neutral, and basic solutions. Although the significant stabilization of the membranes by CNTs is observed, they strongly influence the adsorption process. Our study reveals that even a small amount of CNTs (GO/CNTs in the ratio 8:1) significantly reduces adsorption capacities of the membranes which were as follows: 37, 40, 50, 42, 48, and 98 mg g–1 for Co­(II), Ni­(II), Cu­(II), Zn­(II), Cd­(II), and Pb­(II), respectively. The reduction of the membrane adsorption capacities results from the creation of micro- and nanochannels formed by entangled CNTs. Durability and adsorptive properties of studied membranes indicate their potential use for the removal of metals from water.

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In this work, a fast and low-cost method for the highly selective determination of ultratrace Hg(II) ions by total-reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (TXRF) is presented. The method is based on...

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The article presents the current state of knowledge in the field of estimating preliminary values of storm water subcatchment calibration parameters in the case of using the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) for building a model of storm water drainage system. The key issue is estimating the runoff width in the case of reducing the network structure and storm water catchments due to the shortening of calculation time and simplification of the model calibration process. Correction of one of the recommended literature methods has been proposed. The assessment was based on the real catchment model with single and multi-family housing. It was found possible to apply the proposed method in the case of reducing systems connected in series.

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