A novel ternary magnetic composite consisting of graphene oxide (GO), diethylenetriamine and Fe3O4 nanoparticles (AMGO) were synthesized by a facile one-step reaction route and characterized. The AMGO was applied as a magnetic adsorbent for the Cr(VI) removal from aqueous solutions and the magnetic separation process only took 40 s. The maximum adsorption capacity of the AMGO for Cr(VI) was 123.4 mg/g, displaying a high efficiency for the removal of Cr(VI), which was much higher than that of MGO. The removal process was pH dependence, endothermic and spontaneous. The pseudo-second-order model described well the adsorption kinetic data and the Langmuir isotherm model fitted the experimental data better than the Freundlich isotherm model. XPS analysis revealed that the Cr(VI) was reduced to the low-toxicity Cr(III) during the adsorption process. Both the Cr(VI) adsorption and subsequent reduction of adsorbed Cr(VI) to Cr(III) contributed to the Cr(VI) removal. In addition, the excellent reproducibility indicate that the AMGO may be a promising adsorption material for the separation and preconcentration of Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solutions in environmental pollution cleanup. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.