Camellia oleifera shell–reduced graphene oxide for adsorption of copper(II)
Shanshan Jiang, Hainam Do, Abubakar Yusuf, Zhiyu Xiao, Chengjun Wang, Jian‐Rong Li, Yong Sun, Yong Ren, Jun He
Abstract
Copper pollution in aquatic environments poses a significant health challenge due to its non-biodegradable nature. This study introduces a novel and environmentally friendly approach to preparing Camellia oleifera shell extract reduced graphene oxide (COS-rGO) for the effective removal of Cu(II) from aqueous solutions. By using a 0.5 g/L dosage of COS-rGO at a pH of 5.1 and a temperature of 20 °C, an 85.8 % removal efficiency (18.7 mg/g) of Cu(II) was achieved at an initial concentration of 10 mg/L. Various characterization techniques, including Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), were employed to examine the synthesized COS-rGO. Additionally, thermodynamic and kinetic studies were conducted to investigate the mechanism of Cu(II) adsorption on COS-rGO. The results demonstrate that the adsorption of Cu(II) on COS-rGO follows pseudo-second-order kinetics, representing a spontaneous exothermic reaction. Our findings further support that the removal of Cu(II) by COS-rGO is driven by chemical adsorption in accordance with the rate-controlled process based on the Langmuir adsorption model. Overall, this study presents the green synthesis of COS-rGO as a promising technique for producing a cost-effective adsorbent from waste materials, which can be utilized for the mitigation of heavy metals in water.