Tuning the surface functionality of polyethylene glycol-modified graphene oxide/chitosan composite for efficient removal of dye

Md Nahid Pervez; Md Anwar Jahid; Mst Monira Rahman Mishu; Md Eman Talukder; Antonio Buonerba; Tao Jiang; Yanna Liang; Shuai Tang; Yaping Zhao; Guilherme L Dotto; Yingjie Cai; Vincenzo Naddeo

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-40701-9

Tuning the surface functionality of polyethylene glycol-modified graphene oxide/chitosan composite for efficient removal of dye

Sci Rep. 2023 Aug 18;13(1):13460. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-40701-9.

Authors

Md Nahid Pervez^#^{1

2

3}, Md Anwar Jahid^#¹, Mst Monira Rahman Mishu⁴, Md Eman Talukder¹, Antonio Buonerba⁴, Tao Jiang³, Yanna Liang³, Shuai Tang⁵, Yaping Zhao⁵, Guilherme L Dotto⁶, Yingjie Cai⁷, Vincenzo Naddeo⁸

Affiliations

¹ Hubei Provincial Engineering Laboratory for Clean Production and High Value Utilization of Bio-Based Textile Materials, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, 430200, China.
² Sanitary Environmental Engineering Division (SEED), Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno, via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084, Fisciano (SA), Italy.
³ Department of Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 12222, USA.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Biology "Adolfo Zambelli", University of Salerno, via Giovanni Paolo II, 84084, Fisciano, Italy.
⁵ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Biotransformation of Organic Solid Waste, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, and Institute of Eco-Chongming, Shanghai, 200241, China.
⁶ Research Group on Adsorptive and Catalytic Process Engineering (ENGEPAC), Federal University of Santa Maria, Av. Roraima, 1000-7, Santa Maria, RS, 97105-900, Brazil.
⁷ Hubei Provincial Engineering Laboratory for Clean Production and High Value Utilization of Bio-Based Textile Materials, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, 430200, China. yingjiecai@wtu.edu.cn.
⁸ Sanitary Environmental Engineering Division (SEED), Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno, via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084, Fisciano (SA), Italy. vnaddeo@unisa.it.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

There has been a lot of attention on water pollution by dyes in recent years because of their serious toxicological implications on human health and the environment. Therefore, the current study presented a novel polyethylene glycol-functionalized graphene oxide/chitosan composite (PEG-GO/CS) to remove dyes from aqueous solutions. Several characterization techniques, such as SEM, TEM, FTIR, TGA/DTG, XRD, and XPS, were employed to correlate the structure-property relationship between the adsorption performance and PEG-GO/CS composites. Taguchi's (L₂₅) approach was used to optimize the batch adsorption process variables [pH, contact time, adsorbent dose, and initial concentration of methyl orange (MO)] for maximal adsorption capacity. pH = 2, contact time = 90 min, adsorbent dose = 10 mg/10 mL, and MO initial concentration = 200 mg/L were found to be optimal. The material has a maximum adsorption capacity of 271 mg/g for MO at room temperature. With the greatest R² = 0.8930 values, the Langmuir isotherm model was shown to be the most appropriate. Compared to the pseudo-first-order model (R² = 0.9685), the pseudo-second-order model (R² = 0.9707) better fits the kinetic data. Electrostatic interactions were the dominant mechanism underlying MO sorption onto the PEG/GO-CS composite. The as-synthesized composite was reusable for up to three adsorption cycles. Thus, the PEG/GO-CS composite fabricated through a simple procedure may remove MO and other similar organic dyes in real contaminated water.