Fenton process intensification using supported magnetic nanoparticles

DANILO FIGUEROA PAREDES; ERNESTO MARTÍNEZ

Santa Fe

Congreso; X Congreso Argentino de Ingeniería Química - CAIQ2019; 2019

Asociación Argentina de Ingeniería Químicos

In many industries the wastewater stream has a high volumetric flow rate which demands exceedingly large capital investment when using the homogeneous Fenton process for wastewater treatment with important operating costs, besides the need for costly physical spaces. The most difficult problem in a conventional Fenton process is that free radicals are short lived and non-selective. For drastically increasing the efficiency (operating costs) of the Fenton reagent is mandatory that hydroxyl radicals are generated nearby the target molecule. In this work, intensification of the Fenton process is focused on a drastic reduction of the volumetric rate which is subjected to oxidation with hydrogen peroxide using magnetite nanoparticles supported within the pores of activated carbon. The magnetic composite is used to adsorb the pollutant where magnetic nanoparticles are both a catalyst and a facilitator of magnetic separation. To test the proposed intensification concept, a synthetic dye wastewater having methylene blue is used. Different loadings of the magnetic nanoparticles are considered to balance adsorption capacity with facile magnetic separation. Results obtained reveals the feasibility of achieving a 100 times reduction in the wastewater volumetric load by properly integrating pollutant adsorption with magnetic separation. Re-use of the supported nanoparticles after oxidation is appealing for a significant lowering of operating costs. The efficiency improvement of the heterogeneous Fenton process due to intensification is more than promising and opens the door for significant savings in water reuse in many industries like oil refineries.