Abstract
Agro-industrial discharge contains acetimidothioic acid, which is commercially named "Lanox 90" and is a widely applied insecticide in greenhouses, and the result is wastewater loaded with this insecticide. Treating such wastewater is a must to reduce the environmental impact as well as to facilitate the opportunity for water recycling. Thus, the present work introduced Montmorillonite (MMT) clay as a novel Fenton reaction source to treat wastewater loaded with Lanox 90 insecticide as a benign sustainable strategy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) supported with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to characterize the MMT sample. Response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken analysis was selected to optimize the parametric circumstances. The optimized parameters of the proposed technique were obtained at a pH of 2.6 with the addition of 0.8 and 854 mg/L of MMT and H2O2, respectively, to attain the highest predicted Lanox 90 removal rate of 97%. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine the statistical data and displayed a significant quadratic model. Ultimately, the results reveal that the oxidation system is exothermic and has a non-spontaneous nature, and the reaction kinetics are categorized according to the second-order reaction kinetic rate. The results of the current study indicate the importance of MMT for treating wastewater. These results confirm the possibility of using oxidation technique as a suitable candidate for greenhouse effluent management to enhance the efficiency of water recycling for smart irrigation.