A Box-Behnken design-based chemometric approach to optimize the sono-photodegradation of hydroxychloroquine in water media using the Fe(0)/SO/UV system.

The huge utilization of hydroxychloroquine in autoimmune infections led to an abnormal increment in its concentration in wastewater, which can pose a real risk to the environment, necessitating the development of a pretreatment technique. To do this, we are interested in researching how hydroxychloroquine degrades in contaminated water. The main goal of this investigation is to optimize the operating conditions for the sono-photodegradation of hydroxychloroquine in water using an ultrasound-assisted Fe(0)/ /UV system. To get adequate removal of HCQ, a chemometric method based on the Box-Behnken design was applied to optimize the influence of the empirical parameters selected, including Fe(0) dose, concentration, pH, and initial HCQ concentration. The quadratic regression model representing the HCQ removal rate (η) was evolved and validated by ANOVA. The optimal conditions as a result of the above-mentioned trade-off between the four input variables, with η as the dependent output variable, were captured using RSM methodology and the composite desirability function approach. For HCQ full decomposition, the optimal values of the operating factors are as follows: dose, 194.309 mg/L; Fe(0) quantity, 198.83 mg/L; pH = 2.017, and HCQ initial dose of 296.406 mg/L. Under these conditions, the HCQ removal rate, achieved after 60 min of reaction, attained 98.95%.