Application Of Box–Behnken Experimental Design for Optimizing the Performance of Reduced Graphene/Fe3O4 Nano Adsorbent for Removal of Raloxifene Anticancer Drug

Application of statistical techniques, in particular various design of experiments (DOE) methods in designing optimal approaches for the removal of various pollutants, is gaining the attention of researchers. As an example, the removal of raloxifene (RF), which is an anticancer drug with many side effects and harmful effects to human body, from wastewaters is very important and reported in this study for the first time. In this research, the Box–behnken experimental design technique was used for optimizing the removal conditions of RF using a reduced graphene/Fe3O4 nanocomposite (RG/Fe3O4NC) as an adsorbent. At the determined optimal conditions (pH=7.3; temperature 29.25 °C, removal time 15 min and adsorbent weight 0.01 g), a removal efficiency (R%) of around 100% was observed. The sorbent (RG/Fe3O4NC) was synthesized through chemical precipitation and characterized by XRD, EDAX, MAP and FESEM methods. The spherical Fe3O4NC particles could be observed at the surface of reduced graphene sheet with a diameter of d 15 nm. Additionally, the results proved the dominance of a Freundlich isotherm with a pseudo-second order kinetic process over the adsorption phenomenon. In final step, ability of new adsorbent was check for removal of RF in real samples and results showed removal efficiency between 96.8%-99.1% that confirming the good performance of RG/Fe3O4NC as a new adsorbent for RF.