Synthesis of Environmentally Friendly Rayon-Graphene Oxide Nano Composite for Decontamination of Water

The availability of clean water in the today's world is one of the main concerns of scientific communities because of addition of untreated waste water to natural resources. Here, we have designed a Rayon Graphene Oxide Composite (RGOC) using cotton and graphene oxide for water decontamination. The synthesized composites were characterized by various techniques and evaluated for the removal of Methylene Blue (MB) from water using batch absorption kinetics. The re-usability of adsorbent shows high removal efficiency upto five cycles and shift in lambda(max) from 664 to 638 nm of MB, indicates its degradation on surface of RGOC for which a plausible mechanism was proposed. Rayon provides active surface for stability of GO which allows smooth removal of dye without leaching into water. Further, cotton being biodegradable and easily available material with hydroxyl functionality, therefore it effectively provides an answer to rising need of environment friendly material for water treatment.