Environmentally friendly ultrasound-assisted synthesis of magnetic zeolitic imidazolate framework - Graphene oxide nanocomposites and pollutant removal from water

Ultrasound-assisted procedure is widely used for synthesizing materials due to its low cost, environmental friendly, facile, and mild properties. Herein, ultrasound-assisted synthesis of magnetic zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8)/cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4)/graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposites (ZIF-8/CoFe2O4/GO: ZCG) with different amounts of CoFe2O4/GO (25 and 50 mg denoted as ZCG-25, and ZCG-50) were studied in details. The GO was prepared from graphite. The synthesized materials including GO, ZIF-8, CoFe2O4, CoFe2O4/GO, ZCG-25, and ZCG-50 were fully characterized using BET, TEM, XRD, SEM, FTIR, and VSM. The ultrasound-assisted pollutant removal ability of the synthesized materials was investigated using Malachite Green (MG) as a model contaminant. The surface area of GO, CoFe2O4, ZCG-25, and ZCG-50 was 46, 52, 1543, and 2490 m2/g, respectively. Pollutant removal obeyed the pseudo-second order and Langmuir models. The pollutant removal capacity of ZCG-50, ZCG-25, CoFe2O4/GO, ZIF-8, CoFe2O4 and GO was 2610, 1948, 212, 901, 100, and 118 mg/g, respectively.