Co–Fe Co-Doped Activated Carbon from Waste Cigarette Filters for Color and COD Removal from Textile Wastewater

In this study, Co and Fe doped carbon material was synthesized from cigarette filters, which are significant waste in the world, and the use of this material as a catalyst in persulfate oxidation applied for color and COD removal in biologically treated textile wastewater was investigated. Co–Fe co-doped cigarette filter based carbon (CoFe-CFC) was characterized by SEM and FTIR analysis and contained 1.83 ± 0.19% Fe and 0.76 ± 0.07% Co. The color removal at different CoFe-CFC dose, $${{{\text{S}}}_{2}}{\text{O}}_{8}^{{2 - }}$$ concentration and oxidation time were analyzed by ANOVA and the effect of these parameters was determined. In the treatment of biologically treated textile wastewater with CoFe-CFC and $${{{\text{S}}}_{2}}{\text{O}}_{8}^{{2 - }}$$ , color removal increases with the increase of all parameters. 84.6% of COD and 93.9% of color removal can be achieved with oxidation of 0.4 g/L $${{{\text{S}}}_{2}}{\text{O}}_{8}^{{2 - }}$$ and 3 g/L CoFe-CFC for 120 min. Furthermore, CoFe-CFC has high adsorption capacity, and 83.1% of color and 70.3% of COD removal is achieved in biologically treated textile wastewater at a dose of 3 g/L CoFe-CFC after 120 min adsorption. As a result, it has been observed that while waste recovery and reduction are achieved with carbon material from waste cigarette filters, it can also provide color and COD removal from biological textile wastewater by using it as a catalyst in persulfate oxidation.