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Fenton oxidation, an advanced oxidation process, is an efficient method for the treatment of recalcitrant wastewaters. Unfortunately, it utilizes H2O2 and iron-based homogeneous catalysts, which lead to the formation of high volumes of sludge and secondary pollutants. To overcome these problems, an alternate option is the usage of heterogeneous catalyst. In this study, a heterogeneous catalyst was developed to provide an alternative solution for homogeneous Fenton oxidation. Iron Zeolite Socony Mobile-5 (Fe-ZSM-5) was synthesized using a new two-step process. Next, the catalyst was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis and tested against a model wastewater containing the azo dye Acid Blue 113. Results showed that the loading of iron particles reduced the surface area of the catalyst from 293.59 to 243.93 m2/g; meanwhile, the average particle size of the loaded material was 12.29 nm. Furthermore, efficiency of the developed catalyst was evaluated by performing heterogeneous Fenton oxidation. Taguchi method was coupled with principal component analysis in order to assess and optimize mineralization efficiency. Experimental results showed that under optimized conditions, over 99.7% degradation and 77% mineralization was obtained, with a 90% reduction in the consumption of the developed catalyst. Furthermore, the developed catalyst was stable and reusable, with less than 2% leaching observed under optimized conditions. Thus, the present study proved that newly developed catalyst has enhanced the oxidation process and reduced the chemicals consumption.

We demonstrate a passively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) using a copper nanoparticle (CuNP) thin film as the saturable absorber in a ring cavity. A stable Q-switched pulse operation is observed as the CuNP saturable absorber (SA) is introduced in the cavity. The pulse repetition rate of the EDFL is observed to be proportional to the pump power, and is limited to 101.2 kHz by the maximum pump power of 113.7 mW. On the other hand, the pulse width reduces from 10.19 µs to 4.28 µs as the pump power is varied from 26.1 mW to 113.7 mW. The findings suggest that CuNP SA could be useful as a potential saturable absorber for the development of the robust, compact, efficient and low cost Q-switched fiber laser operating at 1.5-µm region.

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