A magnetic and antibacterial nanocomposite based on graphene oxide nanosheets embedded with Zn-Fe layered double hydroxide as a novel and highly effective adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue dye

Abstract

Fe3O4/GO/Zn-Fe LDH (FGZ) nanocomposite was successfully synthesized and used as an adsorbent nanocomposite for removing Methylene Blue (MB) from an aqueous solution. The sample was characterized for the effective elimination of MB from its aqueous solution using the material characterization techniques. Upon applying BET analysis to the collected data, the surface area was measured as 65.563 m2/g, demonstrating sufficient surface area for efficient pollutant removal. As a result, we reached the highest efficiency absorption of 322.58 mg/g, comparable to other literature, proving that this nanocomposite with this construction method provides an excellent MB adsorption. Moreover, we studied the various adsorption isotherms, with the Langmuir adsorption isotherm described the best fit, and the kinetics study revealed that the dye was adsorbed according to a pseudo-second-order mechanism with R2 = 0.9993. Aside from that, the prepared nanocomposite exhibits intense antimicrobial activity against gram-positive S. aureus (75.09 %) and gram-negative bacteria E. coli (80.53 %). Based on the results outlined above, the FGZ nanocomposite has high adsorption potential to remove organic dyes and antibacterial properties.