Photo-Fenton like Catalyst System: Activated Carbon/CoFe2O4 Nanocomposite for Reactive Dye Removal from Textile Wastewater

Mohammad Heidari,Mohammad Ahmadian,Seyedeh Asadzadeh,Mehrdad Khatami,Pouria Karimi,Rajender Varma,Mohsen Pourkhosravani

doi:10.3390/app9050963

Abstract

The removal of dye from textile industry wastewater using a photo-Fenton like catalyst system was investigated wherein the removal efficiency of phenol and chemical oxygen demand (COD) was studied by varying various parameters of pH (3–11), reaction time (1–50 min), activated Carbon/CoFe2O4 (AC/CFO) nanocomposite dosage (0.1–0.9 g/L), and persulfate amount (1–9 mM/L). The highest removal rates of reactive red 198 and COD were found to be 100% and 98%, respectively, for real wastewater under the optimal conditions of pH = 6.5, AC/CFO nanocomposite dosage (0.3 g/L), reaction time, 25 min, and persulfate dose of 5 mM/L up on constant UV light irradiation (30 W) at ambient room temperature. The result showed that this system is a viable and highly efficient remediation protocol relative to other advanced oxidation processes; inexpensive nature, the ease of operation, use of earth-abundant materials, and reusability for removal of organic pollutants being the salient attributes.

Highlights

Environmental pollution generated by industrial wastewater is one of the greatest problems the world is facing today and dyes are widely applied in many industries, such as leather, textile, plastics, paper, and other entities emanating from pharmaceutical and food industries [1,2,3,4,5]
The surface morphology of nanocomposite shows the generation of cobalt ferrite particles on the surface of activated carbon; small aggregates were observed
The XRD pattern of activated Carbon/CoFe2O4 (AC/CFO) with the crystal phase structure of magnetic nanocomposite had diffraction peaks at 2θ of about 18.42◦, 30.25◦, 35.58◦, 53.59◦, 57.15◦, 62.71◦ and 74.14◦ (Figure 2). These peaks, that are well indexed to the cubic spinel phase of CoFe2 O4, are in agreement with the literature data (JCPDS 96-591-0064) and reveal that, even in the reaction with activated charcoal (AC), the crystal structure of the CoFe2 O4 is well preserved

Summary

Introduction

Environmental pollution generated by industrial wastewater is one of the greatest problems the world is facing today and dyes are widely applied in many industries, such as leather, textile, plastics, paper, and other entities emanating from pharmaceutical and food industries [1,2,3,4,5]. Dyes are usually classified on the basis of their chemical structure, such as anionic, cationic, and non-ionic [9,10]; reactive dyes are stable and anionic in character, and display resistance towards light [11,12]. The methods for the removal of dyes can be classified into the following categories, namely biological methods Sci. 2019, 9, 963 and aerobic processes) [13,14,15], physical methods (sedimentation) [16], membrane processes [16], and adsorption [17,18], and chemical methods (coagulation) [19], flocculation [20], ozonation [21], and electrochemical [21,22]

Methods

Results

Conclusion