Graphene oxide-Fe₂O₃ hybrid nanoparticles: a highly efficient sorbent for Am (III) from aqueous solutions

Recently, carbon nano materials such as carbon nano tubes and graphene oxide (GO) have been widely studied for the treatment of radioactive waste water. GO can be obtained after oxidization of graphene, and there are many oxygen containing surface functional groups such as epoxy (C-O-C), hydroxyl (OH) and carboxyl (COOH) groups on GO surfaces. As a result, GO showed high adsorption capacity for the removal of different kinds of metal ions and organic contaminants in practical applications. In addition to this, the existences of oxygen-containing functional groups make GO participate in various modifications, and thus lots of GO-based multifunctional materials have been prepared and used for the removal of environmental contaminants. The introduction of magnetic materials into GO can combine the high adsorption properties of GO and the separation convenience of magnetic materials. GO-based magnetic materials have caught more attentions in adsorption study due to their unique magnetic and structural characteristics. In this paper, the magnetic GO nanoparticles were used for the sorption of Am(III) from acidic feed solutions in the pH range of 1-6