GO-Fe3O4-CeO2-CTAB nanocomposite as a high-performance adsorbent for removal of phenol from aqueous solutions

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aimed to assess GO-Fe3O4-CeO2-CTAB nanocomposite adsorption efficiency for removing the phenol molecules from the aqua solution. The researcher performed the batch investigations to estimate the percentage of phenol removal from wastewater with the variation of pH value from 3 to 10, adsorption time from 5.000 to 100.000 min, the adsorbent dose from 0.003 to 0.040 g, the phenol concentration from 20.000 to 440.000 mg L−1 and temperature from 25 to 60°C. The GO-Fe3O4-CeO2-CTAB nanocomposite produced by a Co-precipitation method was used to adsorb and remove phenol molecules from an aqueous solution. The synthesised nano-sorbent was investigated by different methods including FTIR, XRD, SEM, EDX, VSM and BET techniques. The gained data show that the best removal efficiency of phenol by GO-Fe3O4-CeO2-CTAB nanocomposite was obtained at pH = 8, the absorbent dosage of 400.000 mg L−1 (0.020 g), contact time = 60 min and temperature of 25°C. For the equilibrium study, based on the obtained coefficients correlation of definition from fitted models, the highest value is obtained for the Langmuir model, (KL = 0.048 L mg−1, qm = 492.000 mg g−1, RL = 0.509 and R2 = 0.992), so, phenol adsorption on the surfaces of GO-Fe3O4-CeO2-CTAB nanocomposite was a monomolecular adsorbed layer. Based on obtained R2 values, it can be concluded that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model seemed to be match well with the adsorption of phenol molecules at the surface of GO-Fe3O4-CeO2-CTAB nanocomposite in three concentrations of 50.000, 100.000 and 125.000 mg L−1 (qe2 = 52.080, 103.090 and 129.870 mg g−1, k2 = 0.005, 0.003 and 0.002 g mg−1 min−1, R2 = 0.999, 0.999 and 0.999 respectively).