Synthesis and characterization of GO-Ag nanocomposite for removal of malachite dye from aqueous solution

Abstract

Due to industrial expansion (printing, rubber, plastics, textiles, cosmetics, leather industries, etc.), various types of synthetic dyes are discharged into the water bodies which cause severe hazards to the environment. Therefore, these dyes need to eliminate from the wastewater using potential adsorbent materials. Graphene-Silver oxide nanocomposite (GO-Ag) was synthesized by modified Hummer's method using lemon juice as a reducing agent. This adsorbent was employed for malachite green (MG) removal from the aqueous solution. The chemically synthesized adsorbent was characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The efficiency of GO-Ag nanocomposite was studied under different experimental limits such as solution concentration, time and pH. The capacity of adsorption of dye (MG) was observed to be 65.21 mg/g at pH 8. The adsorption of malachite green onto GO-Ag nanocomposite best fit to Freundlich model and followed the pseudo-second order of kinetic model. The method can be applied to dyes removal in wastewaters.