Glycine‐functionalized reduced graphene oxide for methylene blue removal

Glycine‐functionalized reduced graphene oxide (GRGO) was prepared through the reaction of glycine and chlorine‐functionalized reduced graphene oxide. The product was characterized by SEM, HRTEM, IR, Raman, and XPS. The nitrogen content (8.28%) was high in product, peak at 285.8 eV was assigned to the C–N bond, which implied that the chlorine residues in raw material were substituted by amine group of glycine. The intensity ratio of D and G peak was about 1.5, which also implied that more saturated carbon atoms were present in the product. Results of SEM, IR, and XPS confirmed that glycine molecules were attached to graphene sheets. Compared with reduced graphene oxide (61.5 mg/g) and active carbon (45.2 mg/g), GRGO had a good adsorption capacity (98.9 mg/g) for methylene blue. The adsorption process was fitted to three kinetic models and three adsorption isotherm models. The adsorption process complied with pseudo‐second order kinetic model and Langmuir model.