Abstract:
The olive oil industry in Palestine is an important and widely spread one and accomplished with the release of large amounts of olive-mills
wastewater. This wastewater represents a significant environmental problem due to its high phenolic content. In this work, the photocatalytic
degradation of the some phenolic compounds (gallic acid, oleuropein and resorcinol) present in olive-mills wastewater using the synthesized
nanoparticles of mixed SnO2-MgO catalyst and solar irradiation was performed. The nanoparticles of mixed SnO2-MgO catalyst with
different ratios were prepared by sol gel method using a modified procedure. The obtained particles were characterized by SEM and XRD.
The particle size was determined as 4.32 ± 0.42 nm which is much smaller than those previously prepared by standard procedures. The
degradation percentage of phenolic compounds was measured by UV spectrophotometry. The effect of time, catalyst amount and phenolic
compound concentration on degradation efficiency was studied. The maximum degradation was achieved using SnO2-MgO (4:1) catalyst,
2.5 mg catalyst per 5 mL solution, within the time of 60-120 min and ranged from 51 to 90 % for different concentrations of phenolic
compounds.