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Water is the basic necessity in the everyday life of human beings. There is a problem of freshwater scarcity due to pollution caused by human interruption, urbanization, population growth, change of lifestyle, changing in climate with frequently occurring natural calamities such as floods and droughts and also feckless use of water. The research community is focused on water filtration as well as desalination in order to produce huge amount of purified water within very short period of time and low cost. Currently, researchers are giving interested in graphene and its derivative-based composite membrane for water filtration as well as desalination due to some specific properties of this membrane. These composite membranes are generally prepared by incorporating some polymer matrices into the graphene derivatives. Previously, graphene has become a formal candidate for water purification and desalination process due to its hardness, high thermal activity and good conductor of electricity. Like other materials, it has also some disadvantages such as proper distribution of pores on the graphene sheets. The ability of salt rejection by graphene decreases with the increase in pore size and pressure. Recently, graphene oxide (GO)-based composite membrane has become a novel material for water purification and desalination because of its large-scale production in industry, easy fabrication method and high mechanical strength. GO is the derivative of graphene containing oxygenated functional groups such as epoxy, carbonyl, hydroxyl and carboxyl group which increases the hydrophilic properties and acts as functional reactive sides. This lesson summarizes the recent progress of graphene-based composite membrane, and their fabrication methods for the application of water desalination draw special attention for effective challenges and future prospectus. |