EFFECTS OF THE CHEMISTRY OF GRAPHENE OXIDE QUANTUM DOTS AND DENDRIMER NANO-MATERIALS ON THEIR INTERACTION WITH IRON OXIDES SURFACES

Nano-particles are the new technologies reforming industrial activities. These materials’ nanometric dimension, 1 to 1000 nanometers, allows them to have novel characteristics such as strength, electrical resistivity and conductivity, and optical absorption compared to the same bigger materials. Although nano-particles occur within the same size range, their different chemistries result in different interactions with other compounds. Graphene Oxide Quantum Dots (GOQDs) and Generetion4 (G4) Polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer are two types of nano-particles with different chemistries. Whereas GOQDs is a hexagonally shaped down-sized Graphene Oxide to the few-nanometer scale with oxygen functional groups, the G4 PAMAM dendrimer is a hyperbranched spheroidal nanoscale polymer consisting of an ethylenediamine core, a repetitive branching amidoamine internal structure, and a primary amine terminal surface. This study is to understand how the chemistries, sizes, and shapes of untreated GOQDs, ozone-treated GOQDs, and G4 PAMAM dendrimer affect their sorption on iron oxides surfaces. With the sorption experiment conducted in a pH range of 4-5, the aged ferrihydrite (AFh) removed 38.94%± 0.37 of the untreated GOQDs compared to 15.43%±1.83 that was removed by the fresh ferrihydrite (FFh). In the same pH range, the AFh removed 11.25%±0.74 of ozone-treated GOQDs while the FFh removed 13.76±1.54 of the ozone-treated GOQDs. In the same conditions, the AFh removed 13.44%±1.48 of the G4 PAMAM dendrimer, while the FFh removed 14.28%±0.22. This presentation will cover the effects of the different chemistries of the nano-materials on their sorption onto ferrihydrite, hematite, and goethite over natural pH (range of 4-10).