Green synthesis of graphene using leaf extracts as sustainable reducing and capping agents is a thrust area of research owing to its simplicity, eco-friendly nature and the ease of access to graphene. Moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam) plant is widely cultivated in India owing to its important medicinal and nutritional values. Inspired by these reports, herein we report a simple, green and economic synthesis of graphene, Moringa leaf extract employed reduced graphene oxide (MRGO) with excellent dye removal efficiencies. The MRGO is prepared by refluxing a mixture of aqueous dispersion of graphene oxide and Moringa leaf extract for 10 h. Further, we elucidated the role of synthesized MRGO in the removal of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RB) dyes through the sonochemical method. This as-synthesized material exhibited excellent dye removal efficiencies of about 93% and 87% against MB and RB dyes, respectively. Graphene with huge surface area expedited the better adsorption of dye molecules, thus, facilitated the better removal of the latter. Therefore, the superior dye removal efficiencies of MRGO were attributed to its adsorption capacity. This cost-effective synthetic approach of MRGO nanomaterial has a great potential for the innovative applications in water purification technology and find its place in further industrialization.

    Abstract
        Graphic abstract
    1 Introduction
    2 Experimental
        2.1 Materials and methods
        2.2 Synthesis of graphene oxide (GO)
        2.3 Synthesis of MRGO
        2.4 Sonochemical dye removal procedure
        2.5 Characterization techniques
    3 Results and discussion
        3.1 UV–visible spectroscopy analysis
        3.2 FT-IR analysis
        3.3 XRD analysis
        3.4 FE SEM and TEM analyses
        3.5 Raman spectroscopy analysis
        3.6 XPS analysis
    4 Dye degradation studies
    5 Conclusion
    Acknowledgements 
    References

• Syed Akhil(Deptartment of Nanotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University)
• Al Musawi Mahdi Jawad Saeed(Deptartment of Nanotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Deptartment of Medical Physics, College of Medicine, University of Kerbala)
• Syam Sundar Majety(Deptartment of Nanotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University)
• Bhanu Mullamuri(Deptartment of Nanotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University)
• Ganesh Majji(Deptartment of Chemistry, RGUKT-AP, Ongole Campus)
• Debasrita Bharatiya(Deptartment of Chemistry, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology)
• Venkata Sai Sriram Mosali(Deptartment of Nanotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University, School of Chemistry, Monash University)
• Hari Babu Bollikolla(Deptartment of Chemistry, Acharya Nagarjuna University)
• Basavaiah Chandu(Deptartment of Nanotechnology, Acharya Nagarjuna University)