Enhanced degradation of textile wastewater by activated carbon–assisted Fenton oxidation: economic analysis and ANN-based optimization

Abstract This study aims to improve the removal organic contaminants from biologically pre-treated textile wastewater using activated carbon (AC)–assisted Fenton oxidation. The optimum conditions for Fenton process were found to be pH 3.0, 2 mM Fe 2+ and 10 mM H 2 O 2 . Reed activated carbon (RAC), produced from Phragmites australis , and commercial activated carbon (CAC) were used to enhance Fenton process under optimized conditions. Different doses and reaction times of RAC and CAC were tested to improve chemical oxygen demand (COD) and colour removal. The results showed that COD removal was 64% within the first 10 min, in the Fenton process. When RAC and CAC were added (2 g/L), COD removal increased to 83% and 88%, respectively. Colour removal was nearly complete at 436, 525, and 620 nm for both AC types. The total operational costs for textile wastewater treatment were calculated as 0.660 USD/m 3 for Fenton process, 4.160 USD/m 3 for CAC-assisted Fenton process, and 2.950 USD/m 3 for RAC-assisted Fenton process. Additionally, artificial neural networks (ANNs) results demonstrated the success of the RAC and CAC-assisted Fenton systems, with determination coefficients ( R 2 ) of 0.9503 and 0.9440, respectively. In this context, high R 2 values indicate that the model predicts the results of the RAC and CAC-assisted Fenton systems well and demonstrates the high efficiency of these systems. Graphical Abstract