Study of morphological aspects in the efficient adsorptive removal of heavy metal ions using graphene oxide-chitosan based magnetic nanocomposite (0.4Fe0x:6x@GCS)

•Tactical fabrication of Fe0x:x@GCS magnetic ternary nano-composite.•Successful removal of heavy metal ions Pb(II), Cd(II), Ni(II) and Cu(II) with the removal efficiency of >99%.•Determination of mechanistic pathway among the nano-composite and contaminants.•Pseudo second order kinetics and the reaction isotherm could be explained by Langmuir isotherm.