Since the isolation and discovery of graphene, researchers have sought to exploit its exceptional material properties for application in fields that range from electronics to polymer composites to medicine. Key publications on the synthesis, characterization and properties, and applications of graphene are reviewed in Chapter 1, as well as key publications on graphene-polymer nanocomposites as nonporous composites. In Chapter 2, graphene decorated with nanogold is investigated as a component of porous polymer nanocomposites for the bottom-up design of multifunctional membranes for water treatment. Nanogold decorated graphene, when incorporated into nanocomposite membranes, endows the membrane with catalytic functionality. The membrane reactivity was quantified using the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol with nanogold as the catalyst. By using hierarchical nanostructures (i.e. graphene decorated nanogold), we showed that membrane structure (i.e. permeability, selectivity, and mechanical properties) and reactivity could be independently controlled, where structure depends on graphene content with 97.8% confidence and reactivity depends on nanogold surface area with 88.3% confidence.
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