•3D high-efficient GO based gels were prepared via the promotion of biopolymers.•The obtained gels have interconnected 3D porous network and large adsorption capacity.•The adsorption process to methylene blue was systematically studied and discussed.•The GO-biopolymer gels showed good selective adsorbability to cationic dyes. Recent studies showed that graphene oxide (GO) presented high adsorption capacities to various water contaminants. However, the needed centrifugation after adsorption and the potential biological toxicity of GO restricted its applications in wastewater treatment. In this study, a facile method is provided by using biopolymers to mediate and synthesize 3D GO based gels. The obtained hybrid gels present well-defined and interconnected 3D porous network, which allows the adsorbate molecules to diffuse easily into the adsorbent. The adsorption experiments indicate that the obtained porous GO-biopolymer gels can efficiently remove cationic dyes and heavy metal ions from wastewater. Methylene blue (MB) and methyl violet (MV), two cationic dyes, are chosen as model adsorbates to investigate the adsorption capability and desorption ratio; meanwhile, the influence of contacting time, initial concentration, and pH value on the adsorption capacity of the prepared GO-biopolymer gels are also studied. The GO-biopolymer gels displayed an adsorption capacity as high as 1100mg/g for MB dye and 1350mg/g for MV dye, respectively. Furthermore, the adsorption kinetics and isotherms of the MB were studied in details. The experimental data of MB adsorption fitted well with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Langmuir isotherm, and the results indicated that the adsorption process was controlled by the intraparticle diffusion. Moreover, the adsorption data revealed that the porous GO-biopolymer gels showed good selective adsorbability to cationic dyes and metal ions.