Removal of methyl green dye molecule from aqueous system using reduced graphene oxide as an efficient adsorbent: Kinetics, isotherm and thermodynamic parameters

• The CC bond distance of graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide was calculated.
• Investigation of the adsorption behavior of methyl green, a cationic dye molecule onto reduced graphene oxide nanosheets.
• Effect of time, temperature, pH, presence of other ions in solution on adsorption was studied.
• The mechanism of adsorption was investigated using FTIR and XRD analysis.

Dyes released from different industries are one of the major pollutants in the water system. So removal of dye before disposal to the main water stream is necessary. In this study, adsorption technique was adopted for removal of the cationic dye from aqueous system using reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as adsorbent material. The kinetic study of adsorption shows that the present system follows pseudo second order kinetic (linear) model. Adsorption isotherm investigation indicates that the adsorption of methyl green onto rGO nanosheets follows the isotherm models in the order Toth > Sips > Dubinin–Radushkevich (D–R) > Scatchard > Langmuir > Temkin > Freundlich model in the pH range 4–6. However, the order changes to D–R > Scatchard > Toth > Sips > Langmuir > Temkin > Freundlich model at pH 7 and 9. The adsorption capacity of methyl green onto the rGO nanosheets increases with increasing pH of the medium due to the change in the surface properties. Presence of other ions like Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and SO42− also influenced on adsorption due to the change in the surface properties. The magnitude of ΔG° values are found to be in the characteristic range of physisorption nature of adsorption. Further, the mechanism of the adsorption process was investigated by FTIR spectroscopy and it indicates that the adsorption is due to electrostatic interaction between methyl green dye molecule and rGO nanosheets. X-ray radial distribution function (RDF) analysis revealed the formation regular molecular packets of graphene. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of the rGO nanosheets before and after adsorption of the dye molecule indicates that some textural changes occur in the rGO nanosheets upon adsorption of the methyl green dye molecule.

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