Abstract
The role of engineering in our society is not to just to continue creating chemicals, but sharing the responsibility for environmentally sound appropriate design of substances for a circular economy. Concerning this contemporary strategy, waste wooden sawdust (WSD) as a biobased by-product is augmented with magnetite (Mag) nanoparticles to meet the concept of cyclic application of resources in environmentally relevant photocatalytic reactions. The physical properties of the prepared WSD:Mag material were characterized to emphasis their structure and morphology by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), then the prepared catalyst was applied in augmentation with hydrogen peroxide as a type of photocatalyst in the form of Fenton’s reaction system to oxidize Nudrin pesticide in queues media. Twinned WSD:Mag has been verified to exhibit higher performance than pristine single-phase catalysts. System parameters, i.e., pH, hydrogen peroxide, catalyst dozing, and temperature, were studied to check their effect on the reaction activity. In the present study, further promotion of photocatalytic activity of twinned WSD:Mag was obtained by optimizing the process parameters at the optimal reaction time of 30 min. The optimal results investigated via Box–Behnken design regression model based on response surface mythology (RSM) showed that the photocatalytic activity of the twinned catalyst could reach 94% at pH 2.5 and 386 and 38 m/L of H
2
O
2
and WSD:Mag, respectively. The regression coefficient and probability obtained from analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to check the adequacy of the applied model, and were 92% and 0.02, respectively. Additional confirmatory tests were carried out under optimum conditions for verification and agreed with the predicted values. Experimental data analysis revealed that the reaction is well fitted with the second-order reaction model. Thermodynamic parameters highlighted the oxidation reaction is non-spontaneous at high temperature and exothermic in nature and proceeds at a low activation energy barrier (31.46 kJ/mol). Catalyst recyclability was also checked, which confirmed catalyst sustainability and high removal rates (78%) after six cycles of use. This work introduces a new concept to design a promising environmentally benign photocatalyst with high potential for applicability to environmental remediation of agricultural effluents with a view to a circular economy.