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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.

Sec. Water and Wastewater Management

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1622134

Application of central composite design for optimizing and statistical analysis of ultrasound-assisted removal of dyes from aqueous solution

Provisionally accepted
Irfan  AhmadIrfan Ahmad1Dilshad  AlhedrawieDilshad Alhedrawie2Vicky  JainVicky Jain3*Abhinav  KumarAbhinav Kumar4Rekha  M.MRekha M.M5Mayank  KundlasMayank Kundlas6S  SunithaS Sunitha7Subhashree  RaySubhashree Ray8Shirin  ShomurotovaShirin Shomurotova9
  • 1King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
  • 2The Islamic University, Najaf, Iraq
  • 3Marwadi University, Rajkot, India
  • 4Western Caspian University, Baku, Azerbaijan
  • 5Jain (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, India
  • 6Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Punjab, India
  • 7Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 8Siksha 'O' Anusandhan, Odisha, India
  • 9Tashkent State Pedagogical University named after Nizami, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This research evaluates the potential of nickel ferrite magnetic nanoparticles (NFO) for the ultrasound-assisted removal of rhodamine B (RB) and safranin O (SO) from aqueous media. A central composite design (CCD) within the framework of response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to model, optimize, and analyze the removal process. Meanwhile, the effects of solution pH (3-11), pollutant concentration (10-50 mg L -1 ), NFO amount (0.01-0.03 g), and sonication time (10-50 min) were investigated systematically. Under optimized conditions determined by CCD (i.e., pH of 8, pollutant concentration of 20 mg L -1 , NFO amount of 0.038 g, and sonication time of 16 min), the removal efficiencies for RB and SO were achieved at 95.87% and 92.64%, respectively. The adsorbent characterization using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and point of zero charge (pHpzc) analysis confirmed the nanometric particle size, high surface area, superparamagnetic properties, and a pHpzc of 6.3 for NFO. Eluent studies indicated that ethanol provided the highest desorption efficiency, enabling effective regeneration of NFO nanoparticles over multiple cycles without significant loss of performance. Application to real water samples demonstrated the practical applicability of NFO, achieving high removal efficiencies while maintaining structural integrity and magnetic separability. These findings highlight the importance of NFO as a promising, reusable, and efficient adsorbent for the rapid removal of toxic dyes under ultrasonic assistance, contributing to the advancement of sustainable water treatment technologies.

Keywords: Central composite design, dyes, magnetic nanoparticles, Nickel ferrite, Ultrasound-assisted removal

Received: 02 May 2025; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Ahmad, Alhedrawie, Jain, Kumar, M.M, Kundlas, Sunitha, Ray and Shomurotova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Vicky Jain, Marwadi University, Rajkot, India

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