Fabrication and structural elucidation of graphene oxide-based nanocomposites (GO-Ag, rGO-Ag) for degradation of methylene blue

Abstract Graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) are two-dimensional material of carbon having unique optical, electrical, mechanical and thermal properties, which could form composite material with different materials. In this work, we fabricated the nanocomposite of GO and rGO with silver (Ag). Modified Hummer method was adopted for the production of GO from graphite powder. This GO was reduced into rGO using ascorbic acid. On the reduction of GO into rGO, inter-planar distance increases which enhanced the properties of rGO as compared to GO. Turkevich method was adopted to produce the nanocomposite of GO and rGO with Ag. FTIR was performed to confirm the different functional group in the desired product. XRD spectra of rGO have broad hump shaped peak which reflects the amorphous structure or lattice and proposed rGO composite as a better membrane material than GO composite for water purification. Similarly, the Raman spectra shows the lower value of D and G band for rGO than GO. Results revealed that methylene blue dye was degraded up to 79.36 % using rGO-Ag composite. Hence, it is concluded that fabricated material could possibly be employed for degradation of other toxic pollutant from industrial effluents.