Comment on “Graphene oxide regulates the bacterial community and exhibits property changes in soil” by J. Du, X. Hu and Q. Zhou, RSC Advances, 2015, 5, 27009

Abstract

Human society is dependent on the provision of ecosystem goods and services mediated by soil organisms. It is important, therefore, to determine whether new and emerging materials influence the structure and function of soil biological communities. A recent study concerning the fate of the emerging nanomaterial, graphene oxide, in soil concluded that it promotes bacterial diversity. Here we demonstrate that due to issues with their experimental design and data analysis, their claim is unjustified.