Study on the performance of laterite in removing graphene oxide contaminants from aqueous solution

Abstract

To remove graphene oxide contaminant from aqueous solution, laterite was used as an adsorbent to conduct batch adsorption experiments on graphene oxide aqueous solutions. The effects of pH, adsorbent mass, graphene oxide initial concentration, contact time, and temperature on graphene oxide adsorption by laterite were studied predominantly. The results show that graphene oxide adsorption by laterite strongly depends on pH, the kinetic data conforms to the second-order kinetic model, and the isotherm data are in line with Langmuir and Freundlich models. Moreover, temperature increment is more conducive to improving the adsorption capacity. Combined with scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman microscopic tests, the internal changes of samples before and after adsorption were further revealed. The comprehensive analysis of the above experimental results shows that laterite is a good material, which can effectively remove graphene oxide contamination from aqueous solutions.