Degradation of Reactive Black 5 dye by Fenton Process Using Fe3O4/Zeolite

Abstract

Along with industrialization, most of the water resources get contaminated and the increased levels of pollutants present in water affect the water quality and aquatic life. While the textile industry contributes largely to the world's economy, it releases huge quantities of dyes and pigments to the environment. Fenton oxidation process is one of the advanced oxidation processes that shows remarkable and promising results in the field of wastewater treatment. However, the homogeneous Fenton process has several disadvantages including production of large volumes of sludge. The main objective of the current research is to develop an efficient, cost-effective and reusable zeolite based heterogeneous Fenton catalyst to treat wastewater containing Reactive Black 5 (RB5) dye. Zeolite was synthesized from ball clay using hydrothermal process. Synthesized zeolite was characterized by FT-IR, XRD and SEM analysis. Heterogeneous Fenton catalyst (Fe3O4/Zeolite) was prepared by impregnating Fe(II) into the zeolite and subsequently characterized using FTIR, XRD and SEM spectroscopy. Iron loading percentage of 0.875% on zeolite was achieved in the catalytic preparation. The catalyst successfully removed of RB5 in waster and the optimum heterogeneous Fenton reaction conditions for the decolorization of 100 ppm RB5 were determined as catalytic dosage of 0.05 g, [H2O2] of 4 mM, pH of 3 and reaction time of 25 minutes at 600 rpm at 30 ºC. Under these optimum reaction conditions, 97% decolorization efficiency was achieved. Reusability studies showed higher decolorization efficiencies even after 5 cycles. Results of the current study will be useful to design new textile wastewater treatment systems.