GO coating. This SEM micrograph of GO-coated PCTE membrane con- firmed the functionalization of the membrane for further study. The FT-IR spectrum clearly shows the difference between the PCTE membrane and the GO-coated membrane. A change near 3000 to 3500 cm−1 (3373.14 cm−1 ) was observed in the GO-coated membrane as shown in Fig. 1f. The modification of the PCTE membrane upon coating with GO was further examined by EDS/EDX to confirm the elemental composition of the modified surface of the membrane. The EDC/EDX spectra of the PCTE membrane with GO coating showed a higher amount of carbon with oxygen (Fig. 2); the presence of a higher amount of oxygen in the coated membrane than in the uncoated PCTE membrane confirmed that the membrane contained GO with oxygen functional groups on its surface. EDS/EDX of the gold-coated PCTE membrane showed that the normal carbon wt% was 63.01 and atomic carbon wt% was 85.60 as shown in Fig. 2a, whereas the GO-coated membrane had a normal carbon wt% of 68.12 and an atomic carbon wt% of 74.07 as shown in Fig. 2b. The normal oxygen wt% value of the gold-coated PCTE membrane was 12.10, but this was higher in the GO-coated membrane 31.66 as shown in Fig. 2a and b respectively. The atomic oxygen was also higher in the GO-coated membrane