Zahra Faraji Chamzini - Department of Chemical Engineering, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran
Sohrab Fathi - Department of Chemical Engineering, Kermanshah University of Technology, Kermanshah, Iran
Mohsen Mansouri - Department of Chemical Engineering, Ilam University, Ilam, Iran

In this work, the zirconium dioxide nanocatalyst was primed by sol-gel method for degradation of Acid Red 40 (AR 40) solution in water. The effectiveness of the treatment method applied for the degradation of AR 40 based on an advanced photocatalytic oxidation process was investigated. The three various key parameters were optimized by using response surface modeling namely: pH, ZrO2 concentration and the initial AR 40 concentrations. The optimized values were obtained at the PH (11), ZrO2 concentration (0.04 g/L), and the initial AR 40 concentration (18.11 mg/L).

Photocatalytic degradation; ZrO2 catalyst; response surface modeling