PHOTOACTIVE HYBRID GRAPHENE-BASED POLYMERIC MATERIALS FOR WATER PURIFICATION

The combined challenges of growing population, climate change and increasing lack of raw materials are leading to paramount innovation in the design of novel devices providing more and more environmentally sustainable solutions. After clay and nanotubes, graphene and its derivatives have become crucial in the preparation of hybrid polymer nanocomposites, being used as an active nanofiller and support of freestanding devices as well. Owing to the possibility of significant improvement as co-catalyst, graphene materials are widely used in combination with polymer-based photocatalysts becoming appealing in water purification applications. The principal goal of this thesis is to present insights into hybrid graphene preparation and characterization describing also a variety of polymer synthetic strategies for the development of high-potential graphene-based composites.