Magnetic Graphene Oxide Composites are the Solutions for Sustainable Remediation of Ecosystems

Abstract

Heavy metals are one of the primary contaminants in the environment [1]. Exposure to heavy metals, even at trace levels, is believed to be a high health risk for humans [2,3]. Heavy metals are naturally occurring throughout the earth’s crust [4]. But most of the environmental contamination results from the anthropogenic activities such as mining and smelting operations, industry, and domestic and agricultural use of metals and metalcontaining compounds. Migration of these contaminants into non-contaminated areas as dust or leachates through the soil and spreading of heavy metals containing sewage sludge are a few examples of events contributing towards contamination of the ecosystems [5]. Hence, water is the one of the major routes through which heavy metals and radionuclides may enter the human body [6,7]. The sources of water pollution are shown in Figure 1. The conventional wastewater purification techniques including chemical coagulation, photo degradation, precipitation, flocculation, activated sludge, membrane separation and ion exchange are limited to the removal of heavy metals at trace levels [7-9]. However, adsorption is one of the best methods for the purification of water, owing to its low cost and easy handling of materials [7,10-12]. Moreover, adsorption approaches using commercial activated carbon, micro-filtration and membrane techniques are effective, but their use is limited by the complicated installation process involved coupled with the high maintenance costs of the systems [7,13]. Hence, these drawbacks have necessitated the search for an alternative method which is inexpensive, renewable and cost-effective for the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions. Many scientific groups have prepared graphene or graphene oxide (GO) based hybrid nanocomposites for various potential applications [14-17]. The study of literature survey and stability of the GO-based nanocomposites prompted us to survey on graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide-based inverse spinel nickel ferrite nanocomposites for the removal of heavy metals and radionuclides from water with the purpose of reducing their environmental impact