Evaluation of the potential dye removal using adsorption by amino acid modified graphene oxide nanoflakes

Lately, the introduction of different toxic pollutant to environment become a serious hazard to wellbeing [1]. The presence of extra pollutants in water over the standard criteria cause serious health hazard for local dwellers and endanger ecosystem. Plating, battery, electronic industries are the most producers of heavy metal ions based pollutants [2]. There are different established methods for removal of pollutants such as sedimentation, coagulation, ion exchanges and reverse osmosis [3]. However adsorption process as an inexpensive and green method attracted great attentions. Lysine with three-functional group was mainly used as nitrogen supplement for feeding livestock [4]. Graphene oxide (GO) surface functionalized by nontoxic aliphatic amino acid (lysine) via the nucleophilic substitution and condensation reactions through the epoxy and carboxylic acid functional group presented on GO surface, and it has been characterized by X-Ray Powder Diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis) Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results indicates that the synthesized composites remove 53% of the pollutant in the first 10 minutes, while GO remove 21% of the pollutant at the same time, approving the high absorbance capacity of the modified GO.