Novel and effective reduced graphene oxide-nickel (Ni) doped manganese oxide (RGO/Ni-MnO2) adsorbents were fabricated via a hydrothermal approach. The reduction of graphite to graphene oxide (GO), formation of α-MnO2, and decoration of Ni-MnO2 onto the surface of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were independently carried out by a hydrothermal technique. The physical and morphological properties of the as-synthesized adsorbents were analyzed. Batch adsorption experiments were performed to identify the lithium uptake capacities of adsorbents. The optimized parameters for Li+ adsorption investigated were pH = 12, dose loading = 0.1 g, Li+ initial concentration = 50 mg L-1, in 10 h at 25 °C. It is noticeable that the highest adsorption of Li+ at optimized parameters are in the following order: RGO/Ni3-MnO2 (63 mg g-1) > RGO/Ni2-MnO2 (56 mg g-1) > RGO/Ni1-MnO2 (52 mg g-1). A Kinetic study revealed that the experimental data were best designated pseudo-second order for each adsorbent. Li+ desorption experiments were performed using HCl as an extracting agent. Furthermore, all adsorbents exhibit efficient regeneration ability and to some extent satisfying selectivity for Li+ recovery. Briefly, it can be concluded that among the fabricated adsorbents, the RGO/Ni3-MnO2 exhibited the greatest potential for Li+ uptake from aqueous solutions as compared to others.
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