Metronidazole elimination from wastewater through photo-Fenton process using green-synthesized alginate-based hydrogel coated bimetallic iron‑copper nanocomposite beads as a reusable heterogeneous catalyst

The photo-Fenton process on heterogeneous nano-catalyst was applied for the metronidazole elimination from a wastewater. The iron‑copper nano-catalyst was synthesized through the green synthesis and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX). The response surface methodology (RSM) based on Box-Behnken design (BBD) was used to investigate and optimize five significant variables (including catalyst loading, initial рН, reaction time, metronidazole, and H2O2 concentration) through forty-six experiments. A quadratic model (with P-value