Degradation of Acid Red 114 Dye from Aqueous Solution Through the Advanced Ozonation Process

The escalating demand for dye-dependent products, such as textiles, inevitably generates colored wastewater, necessitating urgent attention to the efficient degradation of dye pollutants in industrial wastewater. In this work, degradation efficiency through ozonation of the Acid Red 114 (AR114) dye in wastewater was optimized and modeled considering the effects of initial dye concentration, ozone feed rate, pH, and contact time. The response surface methodology’s central composite design was employed using Design Expert software in the experiment’s design, analyses, modeling, and optimization. The findings unveiled a remarkable ozonation degradation efficiency ranging from 86.8% to 97.7% for AR114 dye in aqueous solutions. Numerical optimization showed that AR114 could best be degraded at the following operating conditions: 45 ppm initial AR114 dye concentration, 200 mg/h ozone feed rate, pH of 5, and 21 min contact time, with actual AR114 dye optimum degradation rate of 92.11%. Kinetic analysis revealed that the degradation of AR114 dye in aqueous solutions best fits the pseudo-second-order kinetic model (R2 = 0.9644), outperforming the pseudo-first-order kinetic model (R2 = 0.9595), indicating that the rate of reaction is directly proportional to the concentration of the AR114 dye and the square of the potent ozone gas oxidizing agent. This study successfully demonstrated the efficient degradation of AR114 dye using ozone gas. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of the efficient degradation method in addressing the growing issue of dye-contaminated wastewater, with the potential to significantly mitigate environmental contamination and advance sustainable water treatment technology.