Degradation of furosemide using photocatalytic ozonation in the presence of ZnO/ICLT nanocomposite particles: Experimental, modeling, optimization and mechanism evaluation

The unveiling of a dynamic duo: hydrodynamic cavitation and cold plasma for the degradation of furosemide in wastewater

The degradation in water of furosemide (FUR), a widely used diuretic drug, was herein reported. The method entails an integrated approach based on the hybridisation of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) with electrical discharge (ED) plasma technology. This dynamic duo could increase the production of oxidising compounds in water, in particular hydroxyl radicals (OH radicals), by triggering the rapid homolytic decomposition of water molecules and avoiding the addition of external oxidants. This study clearly emphasises the effectiveness of an integrated approach to improve the degradation of pollutants in wastewater originating from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The results of HC/ED-assisted FUR degradation in the presence of radical scavengers highlight the predominant role of the radical oxidation mechanism at the gas-liquid interface of the cavitation bubble during HC/ED treatment. A comparative analysis of the three technologies-HC alone, HC/ED and UV alone-emphasised the promising potential of hybrid HC/ED as a scalable industrial technology. This is demonstrated by the higher degradation rates (100%, 10 min) when treating large volumes (5L) of wastewater contaminated with FUR (50 mg/L), even in the presence of other APIs.

Tocilizumab degradation via photo-catalytic ozonation process from aqueous

Following the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, tocilizumab has emerged as a potentially efficacious therapeutic intervention. The utilization of O3-Heterogeneous photocatalytic process (O3-HPCP) as a hybrid advanced oxidation technique has been employed for the degradation of pollutants. The present study employed a solvothermal technique for the synthesis of the BiOI-MOF composite. The utilization of FTIR, FESEM, EDAX, XRD, UV-vis, BET, TEM, and XPS analysis was employed to confirm the exceptional quality of the catalyst. the study employed an experimental design, subsequently followed by the analysis of collected data in order to forecast the most favorable conditions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of several factors, including reaction time (30-60 min), catalyst dose (0.25-0.5 mg/L), pH levels (4-8), ozone concentration (20-40 mMol/L), and tocilizumab concentration (10-20 mg/L), on the performance of O3-HPCP. The best model was discovered by evaluating the F-value and P-value coefficients, which were found to be 0.0001 and 347.93, respectively. In the given experimental conditions, which include a catalyst dose of 0.46 mg/L, a reaction time of 59 min, a pH of 7.0, and an ozone concentration of 32 mMol/L, the removal efficiencies were found to be 92% for tocilizumab, 79.8% for COD, and 59% for TOC. The obtained R2 value of 0.98 suggests a strong correlation between the observed data and the predicted values, indicating that the reaction rate followed first-order kinetics. The coefficient of synergy for the degradation of tocilizumab was shown to be 1.22. The catalyst exhibited satisfactory outcomes, but with a marginal reduction in efficacy of approximately 3%. The sulfate ion (SO42-) exhibited no influence on process efficiency, whereas the nitrate ion (NO3-) exerted the most significant impact among the anions. The progress of the process was impeded by organic scavengers, with methanol exhibiting the most pronounced influence and sodium azide exerting the least significant impact. The efficacy of pure BiOI and NH2-MIL125 (Ti) was diminished when employed in their pure form state. The energy consumption per unit of degradation, denoted as EEO, was determined to be 161.8 KWh/m3-order.

Photocatalytic-ozonation process in oxytetracycline degradation in aqueous solution: composite characterization, optimization, energy consumption, and by-products

In this research, we synthesized BiOI/NH₂-MIL125(Ti) via solvo-thermal method to investigation of oxytetracycline (OTC) degradation in photocatalytic-ozonation process. The results of the XRD, FESEM, EDAX, FTIR, UV-Vis, TEM, XPS, and BET analyzes indicated that the catalyst BiOI/MOF was synthesized with excellent quality. Design of experiment (DOE), ANOVA statistical analysis, interaction of parameters and predicated optimum condition was done based on CCD. The effect of catalyst dose (0.25-0.5 mg/l), pH (4-8), reaction time (30-60 min) and O₃ concentration (20-40 mN) at 10 mg/l of OTC on PCO/O₃ process was optimized. Based on P-value and F-value coefficients (0.0001, 450.3 respectively) the model of OTC (F-value = 2451.04) and (P-value = 0.0001) coefficients, the model of COD removal was quadratic model. Under optimum condition pH 8.0, CD = 0.34 mg/l, RT = 56 min and O₃ concentration = 28.7 mN, 96.2 and 77.2% of OTC and COD removed, respectively. The reduction of TOC was 64.2% in optimal conditions, which is less than the reduction of COD and OTC. The kinetics of reaction followed pseudo-first-order kinetic (R² = 0.99). Synergistic effect coefficient was 1.31 that indicated ozonation, presence of catalyst and photolysis had a synergistic effect on OTC removal. The stability and reusability of the catalyst in six consecutive operating steps was acceptable and 7% efficiency decreased only. Cations (Mg²⁺, and Ca²⁺), SO₄^2- had no influence on performing the process, but other anions, organic scavengers, and nitrogen gas, had an inhibitory effect. Finally, the OTC degradation probably pathway includes direct and indirect oxidation that decarboxylation, hydroxylation, demethylation and were the main mechanism in OTC degradation.

Evaluating the catalytic effect of Fe@Fe2O3-modified granulated cork as an innovative heterogeneous catalyst in electro-Fenton degradation of benzoquinone in different aqueous matrices

This study investigated the potential of a novel biomass-derived cork as a suitable catalyst after its modification with Fe@Fe₂O₃ for in-situ application in heterogeneous electro-Fenton (HEF) process for benzoquinone (BQ) elimination from water. No attempts on the application of modified granulated cork (GC) as a suspended heterogeneous catalyst in the HEF process for water treatment have been published yet. GC was modified by sonification approach in a FeCl₃ + NaBH₄ solution to reduce the ferric ions to metallic iron in order to obtain Fe@Fe₂O₃-modified GC (Fe@Fe₂O₃/GC). Results clearly demonstrated that this catalyst exhibited excellent electrocatalytic properties, such as a high conductivity as well as relatively high redox current and possessed several active sites for water depollution applications. Using Fe@Fe₂O₃/GC as catalyst in HEF, 100% of BQ removal was achieved in synthetic solutions by applying 33.3 mA cm^-2 after 120 min. Different experimental conditions were tested to determine that best possible conditions can be as follow: 50 mmol L^-1 Na₂SO₄ and 10 mg L^-1 of Fe@Fe₂O₃/GC catalyst using Pt/carbon-PTFE air diffusion cell by applying 33.3 mA cm^-2. Nevertheless, when Fe@Fe₂O₃/GC was used in the HEF approach to depollute real water matrices, no complete BQ concentration was removal achieved after 300 min of treatment, achieving between 80 and 95% of effectiveness.

Neural-based modeling adsorption capacity of metal organic framework materials with application in wastewater treatment

We developed a computational-based model for simulating adsorption capacity of a novel layered double hydroxide (LDH) and metal organic framework (MOF) nanocomposite in separation of ions including Pb(II) and Cd(II) from aqueous solutions. The simulated adsorbent was a composite of UiO-66-(Zr)-(COOH)2 MOF grown onto the surface of functionalized Ni50-Co50-LDH sheets. This novel adsorbent showed high surface area for adsorption capacity, and was chosen to develop the model for study of ions removal using this adsorbent. A number of measured data was collected and used in the simulations via the artificial intelligence technique. Artificial neural network (ANN) technique was used for simulation of the data in which ion type and initial concentration of the ions in the feed was selected as the input variables to the neural network. The neural network was trained using the input data for simulation of the adsorption capacity. Two hidden layers with activation functions in form of linear and non-linear were designed for the construction of artificial neural network. The model's training and validation revealed high accuracy with statistical parameters of R2 equal to 0.99 for the fitting data. The trained ANN modeling showed that increasing the initial content of Pb(II) and Cd(II) ions led to a significant increment in the adsorption capacity (Qe) and Cd(II) had higher adsorption due to its strong interaction with the adsorbent surface. The neural model indicated superior predictive capability in simulation of the obtained data for removal of Pb(II) and Cd(II) from an aqueous solution.

Modeling and optimization of radish root extract drying as peroxidase source using spouted bed dryer

The main advantages of the dried enzymes are the lower cost of storage and longer time of preservation for industrial applications. In this study, the spouted bed dryer was utilized for drying the garden radish (Raphanus sativus L.) root extract as a cost-effective source of the peroxidase enzyme. The response surface methodology (RSM) was used to evaluate the individual and interactive effects of main parameters (the inlet air temperature (T) and the ratio of air flow rate to the minimum spouting air flow rate (Q)) on the residual enzyme activity (REA). The maximum REA of 38.7% was obtained at T = 50 °C and Q = 1.4. To investigate the drying effect on the catalytic activity, the optimum reaction conditions (pH and temperature), as well as kinetic parameters, were investigated for the fresh and dried enzyme extracts (FEE and DEE). The obtained results showed that the optimum pH of DEE was decreased by 12.3% compared to FEE, while the optimum temperature of DEE compared to FEE increased by a factor of 85.7%. Moreover, kinetic parameters, thermal-stability, and shelf life of the enzyme were considerably improved after drying by the spouted bed. Overall, the results confirmed that a spouted bed reactor can be used as a promising method for drying heat-sensitive materials such as peroxidase enzyme.

Efficient oxidation/mineralization of pharmaceutical pollutants using a novel Iron (III) oxyhydroxide nanostructure prepared via plasma technology: Experimental, modeling and DFT studies

High-performance novel iron oxyhydroxide (limonite) nanostructure, with improved surface reactive sites, was prepared via one-pot, eco-friendly, free precursor and cold glow discharge N₂-plasma technique. Natural and plasma treated (PTNL/N₂) limonite samples were characterized by FESEM, XPS, XRD, FTIR, AAS, EDX, BET/BJH and pH_pzc to confirm the successful synthesis. Central composite design (CCD) and artificial neural network (ANN, topology of 4:8:1) methods were utilized to study the oxidation/mineralization of phenazopyridine (PhP) as a hazardous contaminant by heterogeneous catalytic ozonation process (HCOP). The obtained results indicated that PTNL/N₂ had the highest catalytic performance in PhP degradation (98.6% in 40 min) and mineralization (80.4% in 120 min). The degradation mechanism in different processes was investigated by dissolved ozone concentration, various organic scavengers (BQ and TBA) and inorganic salts (NaNO₃, NaCl, Na₂CO₃ and NaH₂PO₄). Moreover, reusability-stability, Fe and nitrogen (NO₃^- and NH₄⁺) ions release were assessed during different AOPs. Furthermore, toxicity tests indicated that the HCOP using PTNL/N₂ was able to detoxify the PhP solutions efficiently. Finally, Density Functional Theory (DFT) studies were employed to introduce the most plausible contaminant degradation pathway, reactive sites and byproducts. This research provided a new insight into the improvement of wastewater treatment studies by a combination of experiment and computer simulation.

Synthesis, molecular dynamics simulation and adsorption study of different pollutants on functionalized mesosilica

Experimental and computational works were carried out on a new type of mesoporous silica. In the experimental section, functionalized hollow mesosilica spheres were prepared via a facile technique and then evaluated using some analytical techniques (FESEM, TEM, L-XRD, FTIR, BET-BJH, and TGA). The obtained results revealed that the synthesized material had hollow structure with a diamino-grafted porous shell. The molecular separation of crystal Violet (CV) and neutral Red (NR) dyes from water were investigated by adsorption process using the synthesized powder. Influence of adsorbent loading was evaluated as adsorption ability and dyes removal efficiency. Also, the obtained modeling results revealed appropriate fitting of data with non-linear Langmuir model. The theoretical studies were employed to study the adsorption and removal mechanism of cationic (CV and NR) and anionic (orange II (OII)) dyes using molecular dynamics calculations. Moreover, the simulation outcomes provided valuable information about quantum chemical properties including the HOMO-LUMO maps, chemical reactivity, global softness (σ) and hardness (η) for silica-linker-water-dyes components.

Application of Mineral Iron-Based Natural Catalysts in Electro-Fenton Process: A Comparative Study

The potential use of novel iron based mineral catalysts as an effective and available material for electrocatalytic oxidation of refractory contaminants by heterogeneous electro-Fenton (HEF) process was studied for the first time. For this purpose, four natural catalysts, namely ilmenite (FeTiO3), pyrite (FeS2), chromite (FeCr2O4), and chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) were selected as the source of ferrous iron (Fe2+) ions. The catalyst samples were appropriately characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and RAMAN analysis. The degradation kinetics and mineralization rate of 0.2 mM antibiotic cefazolin (CFZ), as a contaminant of emerging concern, were comparatively investigated by HEF using the catalysts mentioned above. The effect of important experimental parameters such as catalysts loading and current on the process efficiency was investigated. Moreover, the performance of these new mineral catalysts was compared in term of CFZ degradation kinetics, mineralization power, mineralization current efficiency and electrical energy consumption. A greater enhancement in degradation/mineralization of CFZ was obtained when using chalcopyrite as the catalyst in HEF. The stability and reusability experiments demonstrated negligible decrease in catalytic activity of chalcopyrite after five consecutive runs. Besides, the rate constant for CFZ oxidation by hydroxyl radicals was estimated according the pseudo-first-order reaction kinetics. The empirical assessment, in addition to economic evaluation, confirmed that iron based mineral catalysts and specifically chalcopyrite could be an appropriate and cost-effective alternative catalyst for HEF due to its high catalytic activity, availability, eco-friendly nature and low energy consumption compared to other synthesized catalysts.