Synergism between polyethyleneimine, graphene oxide, and MgFeAl-layered triple hydroxide in removing acid red 1 dye and bisphenol A from contaminated water samples

Water pollution is rapidly growing, requiring the development of effective treatment processes. In this work, a novel adsorbent (composed of polyethyleneimine, graphene oxide, MgFeAl-layered triple hydroxide, abbreviated as PEI@GO/MgFeAl-LTH) was synthesized, characterized, and applied to remove two hazardous water pollutants (i.e., acid red 1 and bisphenol A). The adsorption performance of the synthesized PEI@GO/MgFeAl-LTH nanocomposite was benchmarked to its parental materials (i.e., GO, PEI@GO, MgFeAl-LTH, and GO/MgFeAl-LTH). The results demonstrated that the adsorption capacity of bisphenol A (BPA) and acid red 1 (AR1) onto the nanocomposite are 352.0 and 155.5 mg/g, respectively, which are higher than their adsorption on GO, PEI@GO, MgFeAl-LTH, and GO/MgFeAl-LTH. The obtained adsorption isotherms and kinetics data were fitted using different models, which showed that Redlich-Peterson isotherm and Avrami kinetics models provide excellent fits for the obtained experimental data; the other models provided mixed results. The zeta potential measurements and the study of the pH effect suggest that the adsorption of BPA and AR1 onto the PEI@GO/MgFeAl-LTH nanocomposite is governed by more than a single mechanism. Furthermore, thermodynamics analysis demonstrated that the adsorption of AR1 and BPA is an exothermic (the respective ∆H values are −27.59 and −11.21 kJ/mol), spontaneous, and physical in nature. With respect to the reusability of this nanocomposite, the results revealed that it is highly stable and easily regenerable using a cheap solvent (i.e., 0.2 M NaOH). Accordingly, this study demonstrates the efficacy and superiority of the synthesized PEI@GO/MgFeAl-LTH nanocomposite in efficiently capturing toxic organic pollutants from aqueous environments.