Sugarcane Bagasse Ash as a Catalyst Support for Facile and Highly Scalable Preparation of Magnetic Fenton Catalysts for Ultra-Highly Efficient Removal of Tetracycline

Sugarcane bagasse ash, which is waste from the combustion process of bagasse for electricity generation, was utilized as received as a catalyst support to prepare the magnetic sugarcane bagasse ash (MBGA) with different iron-to-ash ratios using a simple co-precipitation method, and the effects of NaOH and iron loadings on the physicochemical properties of the catalyst were investigated using various intensive characterization techniques. In addition, the catalyst was used with a low amount of H2O2 for the catalytic degradation of a high concentration of tetracycline (800 mg/L) via a Fenton system. The catalyst exhibited excellent degradation activity of 90.43% removal with good magnetic properties and high stabilities and retained good efficiency after four cycles with NaOH as the eluent. Moreover, the hydroxyl radical on the surface of catalyst played a major role in the degradation of TC, and carbon-silica surface of bagasse ash significantly improved the efficiencies. The results indicated that the MBGA catalyst shows the potential to be highly scalable for a practical application, with high performance in the heterogeneous Fenton system.

Automated summary

Sugarcane bagasse ash was used as a catalyst support to prepare magnetic sugarcane bagasse ash (MBGA). The MBGA catalyst showed excellent degradation activity and high stability in the Fenton system for the catalytic degradation of high concentration tetracycline. The results suggest that MBGA has high potential for practical applications.