Enhanced capacity of fluoride scavenging from contaminated water by nano-architectural reorientation of cerium-incorporated hydrous iron oxide with graphene oxide

An in situ wet chemical deposition method has been applied for the successful surface modification of Ce (IV)-incorporated hydrous Fe(III) oxide (CIHFO) with a hydrophilic graphene precursor, graphene oxide (GO). The surface area of as-prepared composite (GO-CIHFO) has enhanced (189.57 m² g^-1) compared with that of pristine CIHFO (140.711 m² g^-1) and has irregular surface morphology consisting of microcrystals (~ 2-3 nm) and mesoporous (3.5486 nm) structure. The GO-CIHFO composite shows enhanced fluoride scavenging capacity (136.24 mg F g^-1) than GO (3 mg F g^-1) and pristine CIHFO (32.62 mg F g^-1) at pH 7.0. Also, in acidic pH range and at 323 K temperature, the Langmuir capacity of as-prepared composite is 190.61 mg F g^-1. It has been observed that fluoride removal by GO-CIHFO occurs from solutions obeying pseudo-second-order kinetics and multilayer adsorption process. The film/boundary layer diffusion process is also the rate-determining step. The nature of the adsorption reaction is reasonably spontaneous and endothermic in thermodynamic sense. It was observed that 1.2 g.L^-1 of GO-CIHFO dosage can effectively optimise the fluoride level of natural groundwater samples (9.05 mg L^-1) to the desirable permissible limit. Reactivation of used material up to a level of 73.77% with a solution of alkaline pH has proposed reusability of nanocomposites ensuring sustainability of the proposed material as fluoride scavenger in future.