Synthesis and Application of Granulated Cellulose/CuBDC/Fe3O4 in Elimination of Direct Blue 71 by Heterogeneous Fenton Process

Plenty of methods have been introduced to treat the consumed water where the advantages and disadvantages of each method define their applications. Advanced oxidation processes have become a scientific trend due to high removal efficiency. As one of the AOP methods, heterogeneous Fenton method has received plenty of interest because of its high operational capability. In this study, cellulose/CuBDC/Fe3O4 nanocomposite was utilized as heterogeneous Fenton catalyst to remove Direct Blue 71 toxic dye from aqueous media. The catalyst was synthesized as granulated beads to eliminate the operational limitations of utilizing powdered catalysts. The catalysts were characterized by SEM, EDX, FTIR and XRD analysis to validate the successful synthesis procedure. The effects of each component of the nanocomposite on the removal efficiency were investigated. The effective operation of independent parameters such as the initial dye concentration, H2O2 concentration and catalyst dosage were modeled and optimized by RSM design of experiments method. At the optimum point, the removal efficiency of 86.93% was achieved. In addition, the COD of the wastewater was decreased by 73.52%, which demonstrated the high potential of granulated cellulose/CuBDC/Fe3O4 nanocomposite in decomposing organic matter to H2O, CO2, NO2 and SO2. The prepared granulated catalysts retain their removal characteristics over 8-cycle operation.