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 (Fe2+/Fe3+) supported catalyst with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) 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 H2O2 and magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles catalyst results in an increase in the dye oxidation rate and the optimum operating values were 80 and 1600 mg/L for Fe3O4 and H2O2, 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.