Simple fabrication of Chitosan/Graphene nanoplates composite spheres for efficient adsorption of acid dyes from aqueous solution

A facile method for the fabrication of crosslinked chitosan/graphene nanoplates composite sphere (CS/GNPs) was presented. The obtained samples were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The adsorption activities of CS/GNPs for methyl orange (MO) and acid red 1 (AR1) were evaluated such as the effect of pH and GNPs content, as well as adsorption kinetics and isotherms. In view of practical, the reusability of CS/GNPs was also tested. The resulting adsorption capacity for MO is 230.91   mg   g −1 and 132.94   mg   g −1 for AR1, respectively. After saturated adsorption, CS/GNPs can be efficiently regenerated and reused with little uptake loss. Therefore, CS/GNPs is the apromising adsorbent with non-toxic, efficient, low-cost and easy to prepare for the dye removal.