In-situ synthesis of nanomagnetites on poly(amidoamine)-modified graphite oxides and their novel catalytic performances towards the degradation of p-nitroaniline

An approach of loading nanomagnetites (NMs), obtained by in-situ synthesis, on graphite oxides (GO) or poly(amidoamine)-modified GO (pGO) was described in detail in this work. Compared with the GO-NM, the pGO-NM hybrids performed excellent catalysis on degradation of aqueous p-nitroaniline in surrounding air and aqueous medium with a mechanical agitation without light irradiations and additional hydrogen peroxides. These properties differed tremendously from those of most reported metallic oxide-GO hybrids. The catalytic decomposing of the p-nitroaniline was recorded by the successive measurements of an ultraviolet–visible spectrometer. The chemical modifications on GO were investigated with infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectrometers. The hybrids of GO-NM and pGO-NM are estimated with ultraviolet–visible spectrometer, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, cyclic voltammetry measurements and thermogravimetric analyses. The experimental results showed that the dissolved oxygen and water were involved in the degradation, which provided solid evidences for the mechanism discussion.