Currently there is a growing global demand with respect to industrial waste treatment, among them phenol and spent batteries. Iron oxides and ceramics containing iron, such as ferrites, have been used with success as catalysts for heterogeneous Fenton process. The Fenton and photo-Fenton processes have high efficiency in treatment of toxic residue using iron as catalysts. In this respect, ferrites were developed from spent batteries. The use of these ferrites as catalysts is very interesting because these oxides are ferromagnetic and can be recovered at the end of the process using a magnetic field, avoiding the discharge of Fe2+ and Fe3+ in the environment. The results showed that the ferrite from spent batteries calcined at 500 °C presents structural of spinel phase and magnetic properties (Ms= 37.04 emu.g-1) and applied in photo-Fenton process, it was reached 90% of phenol removal at pH 2.5 with 2 h of irradiation.
ferrites; magnetic material; spent batteries; photo-Fenton
