Magnetically Separable Fe₃O₄/SnO₂/Graphene Adsorbent for Waste Water Removal

Our previous study conducted the SnO₂ and SnO₂/graphene adsorption efficiency in Methylene Blue removal from aqueous solution, however, the difficulty of adsorbent separation from the methylene blue solution limits its efficiency. Therefore, in this work, SnO₂ and SnO₂/graphene was combined with Fe₃O₄ to improve the separation process and adsorption performance for removing the organic dyes. Fe₃O₄/SnO₂/grapheme were synthesized by using the co-precipitation method. The graphene content was varied from 1, 3, and 5 weight percent (wt%). The crystalline phase and thermal stability of the samples were characterized by using X- ray Diffraction (XRD) and Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA). The adsorption ability of the samples was investigated by using significant adsorption degradation of MB observed when the graphene in Fe₃O₄/SnO₂ nanocomposite was added. The other parameters such as pH and initial concentration have also been investigated. The reusability was also investigated to study the stability of the samples. The fitting of equilibrium adsorption capacity result indicates that the adsorption mechanism of Fe₃O₄/SnO₂ nanocomposite with graphene tends to follow the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. (paper)