Graphene oxide supported Fe3O4-MnO2 nanocomposites for adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of dyestuff: ultrasound effect, surfactants role and real sample analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Present work demonstrates the synthesis, characterisation and application of a novel hybrid nanocomposite GO@Fe3O4-MnO2 for adsorption and catalytic degradation of dyestuff malachite green and tartrazine from wastewater. The nanocomposite GO@Fe3O4-MnO2 was characterised by FT-IR, XRD, SEM-EDS and pHzpc. Effects of various optimising parameters such as contact time, solution pH, surfactants, light, adsorbent dose, ultrasonication and coexisting ions were investigated. The removal efficiencies of malachite green and tartrazine were observed as high as 99.9% and 98% under direct sunlight, respectively. The adsorption kinetics follows the pseudo-second order model (R2 = 0.99) where k2 for malachite green and tartrazine were 0.0097 and 0.0011 g mg−1 min−1, respectively, that means adsorption was controlled by chemisorption. Equilibrium adsorption isotherm of these dyes was analysed in the context of Langmuir and Freundlich models, and the maximum adsorption capacity for Langmuir isotherm was found to be 8.0 and 5.1 mg g−1 for malachite green and tartrazine, respectively. The percentage removal was initially low, but when the ultrasound was irradiated, the removal percentage (96% for malachite green and 98% for tartrazine) was drastically increased because of the formation of highly active •H and •OH radicals in the water through the decomposition of water molecules by the formation of hot spots. On treatment with H2O2, advance oxidation processes were observed with high remediation percentage (99.5% for malachite green and 98% for tartrazine) of dye. The synthesised GO@Fe3O4-MnO2 was finally used for the treatment of dyes from real water samples. The used nanocomposite was separated using an external magnet and recycled with 0.1 N HCl or 0.1 N NaOH as desired.