Graphene oxide impregnated with iron oxide nanoparticles for the removal of atrazine from the aqueous medium

ABSTRACT

The present study proposes development of an adsorbent based on combination of graphene oxide (GO) and iron oxide (α-γ-Fe₂O₃) nanoparticles for atrazine removal from water. The synthesized adsorbent (GO@ α-γ-Fe₂O₃) was characterized using different techniques. Magnetic measurements proved that the adsorbent has superparamagnetic characteristics, thus facilitating its magnetic separation from the working suspensions. The maximum adsorption capacity was 42.5 mg g⁻¹. The Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second order kinetic models correlated adequately with the experimental data. The thermodynamic data showed that atrazine adsorption was spontaneous, endothermic and thermodynamically favorable.

KEYWORDS:

• Graphene oxide
• superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles
• atrazine
• adsorption

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) as well as National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq - Brazil) for financial support. They are also grateful to Prof. F. Larachi for the magnetic characterization of the adsorbent.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.