González-Rodríguez, JorgeFernández Fernández, LucíaVargas Osorio, ZulemaPiñeiro Redondo, YolandaRivas Rey, JoséFeijoo Costa, GumersindoMoreira Vilar, María Teresa2022-11-222022-11-222021González-Rodríguez, J., Fernández, L., Vargas-Osorio, Z., Vázquez-Vázquez, C., Piñeiro, Y., Rivas, J., Feijoo, G., Moreira, M.T. Reusable Fe₃O₄/SBA15 nanocomposite as an efficient photo-Fenton catalyst for the removal of sulfamethoxazole and Orange II. Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 533http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29454Today, the presence of recalcitrant pollutants in wastewater, such as pharmaceuticals or other organic compounds, is one of the main obstacles to the widespread implementation of water reuse. In this context, the development of innovative processes for their removal becomes necessary to guarantee effluent quality. This work presents the potentiality of magnetic nanoparticles immobilized on SBA-15 mesoporous silica as Fenton and photo-Fenton catalysts under visible light irradiation. The influence of the characteristics of the compounds and nanoparticles on the removal yield was investigated. Once the key aspects of the reaction mechanism were analyzed, to evaluate the feasibility of this process, an azo dye (Orange II) and an antibiotic (sulfamethoxazole) were selected as main target compounds. The concentration of Orange II decreased below the detection limit after two hours of reaction, with mineralization values of 60%. In addition, repeated sequential experiments revealed the recoverability and stability of the nanoparticles in a small-scale reactor. The benchmarking of the obtained results showed a significant improvement of the process using visible light in terms of kinetic performance, comparing the results to the Fenton process conducted at dark. Reusability, yield and easy separation of the catalyst are its main advantages for the industrial application of this processeng© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Magnetic nanoparticlesVisible lightPhoto-FentonSulfamethoxazoleOrange IIReuseReactorMaterias::Investigación::22 Física::2210 Química física::221001 CatálisisMaterias::Investigación::33 Ciencias tecnológicas::3303 ingeniería y tecnología químicas::330301 Tecnología de la catálisisMaterias::Investigación::33 Ciencias tecnológicas::3308 Ingeniería y tecnología del medio ambiente::330810 Tecnología de aguas residualesjournal article10.3390/nano110205332079-4991open access