Highly active copper in dye discoloration via a heterogeneous Fenton-like process

• Published in: Journal of the Iranian Chemical Society Vol. 17; no. 5; pp. 1201 - 1209
• Main Authors: Hamidani, Meriem, Djerad, Souad, Tifouti, Lakhdar, Boulkra, Mohamed
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.05.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analytical Chemistry; Biochemistry; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Copper; Copper oxides; Discoloration; Dyes; Hydrogen peroxide; Inorganic Chemistry; Methylene blue; Organic Chemistry; Original Paper; Physical Chemistry; Reagents; Green process; production; Ascorbate; Heterogeneous Fenton-like; Copper; Dye discoloration; In situ H; O
• ISSN: 1735-207X; 1735-2428
• DOI: 10.1007/s13738-019-01846-5

This study presents the discoloration of methylene blue by heterogenous Fenton-like process using copper. Copper was prepared with sodium ascorbate, an eco-friendly reagent under atmospheric conditions and characterized using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope analysis. Sub-micron-sized particles were formed and mainly composed of metallic copper Cu with the minor presence of Cu 2 O. The obtained product (labeled as Cu R ) was compared to a commercial zero-valent copper (labeled as Cu F ) in the discoloration process of methylene blue. Different parameters such as copper loading, temperature and initial dye concentration were studied. Under the same conditions, Cu R and Cu F registered 95.04% and 20.46%, respectively, after 10 min of reaction. The discoloration process was due to the in situ production of H 2 O 2 which was evidenced by permanganate method. It was found the formation of 0.18 mM and 75 µM of H 2 O 2 after 2 min of reaction with Cu R and Cu F , respectively. The reaction rate with Cu R was 5 times faster than that with Cu F and both followed a pseudo-first-order reaction kinetic. The high activity observed with Cu R was found to be due to the presence of Cu 2 O.