Synthesis and Characterization of Hybrid-Nano Graphene Oxide Composites Membranes for Water Treatment

Synthesis and characterization of nano-graphene oxide (NGO), nano-graphene oxide-chitosan (NGO-CS), nano-graphene oxide-Methionine (NGO-M) and nano-graphene oxide-Cysteine (NGO-C) composites, by FT-IR to determine the formation of the new bonds, XRD to find out the particles size (7.4, 10.8, 16.83 and 19.52 nm) for NGO, NGO-CS, NGO-M and NGO-C composites respectively, through Debye-Scherrer equation. The fabrication of NGO, CS, NGO-CS, NGO-M and NGO-C membranes by vacuum filtration and determining of the average pore sizes by FESEM (52.31-613.20), (63.14-972.40), (49.53-347.50), (84.8-326.00) and (55.32-147.01) nm respectively. In the membranes used to separate an organic pollutant (BPB dye), the removal percentages are (85.65%, 95.35%, 98.52%, 86.91% and 92.61%) respectively, and the best membrane was NGO-CS. These membranes also used to separate trace heavy metals as inorganic pollutants, Ni+2, Cd+2, Co+2, Cu+2 and Pb+2 ions from aqueous solutions, the best membrane was (NGO-CS, CS, NGO-CS, NGO-M and NGO-CS) for each metal ions respectively, while the removal percentages were as follows (46.43%, 52.2%, 68%, 17%, 66%, 47% and 67.04 %) respectively.