Strong enhancement of methylene blue removal from binary wastewater by in-situ ferrite process

Dye wastewater containing heavy metal ions is a common industrial effluent with complex physicochemical properties. The treatment of metal-dye binary wastewater is difficult. In this work, a novel in-situ ferrite process (IFP) was applied to treat Methylene Blue (MB)-Cu(II) binary wastewater, and the operational parameters were optimized for MB removal. Results showed that the optimum operating conditions were OH/M of 1.72, Cu²⁺/Fe²⁺ ratio of 1/2.5, reaction time of 90min, aeration intensity of 320mL/min, and reaction temperature of 40°C. Moreover, the presence of Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ moderately influenced the MB removal. Physical characterization results indicated that the precipitates yielded in IFP presented high surface area (232.50m²/g) and a multi-porous structure. Based on the Langmuir model, the maximum adsorption capacity toward MB was 347.82mg/g for the precipitates produced in IFP, which outperformed most other adsorbents. Furthermore, IFP rapidly sequestered MB with removal efficiency 5 to 10 times greater than that by general ferrite adsorption, which suggested a strong enhancement of MB removal by IFP. The MB removal process by IFP showed two different high removal stages, each with a corresponding removal mechanism. In the first brief stage (<5min), the initial high MB removal (~95%) was achieved by predominantly electrostatic interactions. Then the sweep effect and encapsulation were dominant in the second longer stage.