Catalytic oxidation over nanostructured heterogeneous process as an effective tool for environmental remediation

Abstract

Abstract Industrialization has led to a severe deterioration in water quality. Textile industry is considered a huge consumer of water in Egypt; the result is generating large amounts of dye-containing wastewater that is essential to be treated before the final disposal. However, searching for efficient treatment is an important aspect for a sustainable environment. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been emerged as efficient techniques for industrial wastewater remediation. Among the AOPs, Fenton based reactions is considered a promising process for its simplicity in application and cost-efficient with high process efficiency. In this study, heterogeneous Fenton reaction using magnetite nanoparticles induced by ultraviolet radiation (UV) was applied as a green technology pathway for textile dyeing wastewater oxidation. Nanostructured magnetite was successfully obtained by co-precipitation technique that is used as the precursor of the Fenton’s reaction process. The heterogeneous iron (Fe 2+ /Fe 3+ ) supported catalyst with hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) was used as a coupled Fenton and Fenton-like oxidation system for methylene blue dye removal in aqueous media. The obtained results investigated that the dye oxidation rate increases with decreasing pH to 3.0. However, increasing H 2 O 2 and magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles catalyst results in an increase in the dye oxidation rate and the optimum operating values were 80 and 1600 mg/L for Fe 3 O 4 and H 2 O 2 , respectively. By optimizing the amount of reagents, process conditions as well, the results revealed that magnetite was considered an efficient Fenton-based catalyst for dye oxidation that is reached to 94% within 3 hr of oxidation time. Finally, magnetite catalyst could be easily recovered by magnetic separation to confirm the process sustainability.