Photocatalytic degradation and photo-Fenton oxidation of Congo red dye pollutants in water using natural chromite—response surface optimization

Refined natural Fe-chromite was characterized by XRD, FT-IR, reflected polarized microscope, XRF and UV spectrophotometer. Photocatalytic degradation and photo-Fenton oxidation of Congo red dye by Fe-chromite was investigated using 1 mL H2O2. The degradation of dye was studied as a function of illumination time, chromite mass, initial dye concentration, and pH. Fe-chromite acts as binary oxide system from chromium oxide and ferrous oxide. Thus, it exhibits photocatalytic properties under UV illumination and photo-Fenton oxidation after addition of H2O2. The degradation in the presence of H2O2 reached the equilibrium stage after 8 h (59.4%) but in the absence of H2O2 continued to 12 h (54.6%). Photocatalytic degradation results fitted well with zero, first order and second order kinetic model but it represented by second order rather than by the other models. While the photo-Fenton oxidation show medium fitting with the second order kinetic model only. The values of kinetic rate constants for the photo-Fenton oxidation were greater than those for the photocatalytic degradation. Thus, degradation of Congo red dye using chromite as catalyst is more efficient by photo-Fenton oxidation. Based on the response surface analysis, the predicted optimal conditions for maximum removal of Congo red dye by photocatalytic degradation (100%) were 12 mg/l, 0.14 g, 3, and 11 h for dye concentration, chromite mass, pH, and illumination time, respectively. Moreover, the optimum condition for photo-Fenton oxidation of dye (100%) is 13.5 mg/l, 0.10 g, 4, and 10 h, respectively. © 2017, The Author(s).