Caffeine is a refractory pollutant of emerging concern that evades conventional waste-water treatment techniques. Here, we report the synthesis of visible light responsive perovskite structured LaMnO­3 photocatalyst using modified Pechini method and utilized it as an efficient photocatalyst for caffeine degradation. XRD, BET, UV-Vis, NH3-TPD, and SEM were used to characterize the photocatalyst. Response surface methodology using Central composite design was used to investigate the effect of three operational variables; catalyst dosage, initial caffeine concentration and pH on the caffeine photocatalytic degradation efficiency. The functional relationship between these operational variables and caffeine photocatalytic degradation efficiency was established be a second order polynomial model. The results of the response surface analysis indicate caffeine degradation efficiency is most significantly affected by catalyst dosage and pH. The optimal values of operational obtained by response surface optimization were found be 3.5 g/L for catalyst dosage, 7.9 and 44.6 mg/L for pH and initial caffeine concentration respectively given the caffeine degradation efficiency of 93.9%.

In this research, a structural modification for a cellulose/polyester blend has been carried out using NH4OH, (NH4)2C2O4 and liquid NH3 which are environmentally friendly alternative scouring agents with NaOH as control. The scouring process was carried out on the samples with these alternative agents. Investigation into structural modification of cellulose/polyester blend fabric using NH4OH, (NH4)2C2O4 and liquid NH3 and its structural characterization with X-ray diffraction was carried. The results showed the inferences variation in the crystallinity index of scoured samples from (3.21-65.30%), the crystallite size of scoured samples (1.9-15 nm) in the crystalline region and (7-20 nm) in the amorphous region, inter-planar spacing of the scoured samples (0.340-0.350 nm) of the crystalline region and (0.350-0.340 nm) of the amorphous region and number of crystalline planes of the scoured samples is (3-11) of the cellulose/polyester blend fabric samples via X-ray diffraction studies. Among these alternative agents (NH4)2C2O4 and NH4OH showed better interaction with both amorphous and crystalline regions of the cellulose/polyester blend fabric samples without loss in crystallinity when used as scouring agents, and the possibilities of being a superior alternative with significant effect on the structures of the cellulose/polyester blend, while the other samples showed possibilities of being highly competitive with the conventional agent.