Synthesis of iron/GAC catalyst for wastewater treatment using heterogeneous Fenton reaction

Iron catalyst dispersed on granular activated carbon (GAC) was prepared by impregnating Fe(NO3)3 solution on GAC. The mixed solution was annealed at 600°C in muffle furnace under ambient condition for 1 h. The structural property of the catalyst was investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The catalyst’s activity and lifetime were tested using the degradation of 50 ppm methyl orange (MO) solution. In addition, the optimum conditions of the Fenton reaction such as initial pH, initial MO concentration hydrogen peroxide concentration and the amount of catalyst were also investigated. The XRD results showed that magnetite and haematite were two main compositions of the synthesized catalyst. The investigation of optimum conditions suggested that initial pH at 3 provided the highest efficiency of MO removal. In addition, the concentration of hydrogen peroxide at 8 ppm was the most suitable. The optimum condition of amount of catalyst was 5 g l−1. The efficiencies of MO removal reached 95% at 60 min of reaction time at low initial MO concentration (25–500 mg l−1). In the meantime, the removal efficiency was found to decrease with the increase in the initial MO concentration. The efficiency decreased to 70 and 30% at 1000 and 3000 mg l−1 of initial MO concentration, respectively. Additionally, after reuse the synthesized catalyst 3 times the MO removal efficiency still remained over 90%. In conclusion, the iron/GAC catalyst was successfully synthesized and applied to dye treatment using heterogeneous Fenton reaction. The catalyst showed high efficiency of MO removal and could be reused many times.