Determination of optimum operating conditions of carmine decoloration by UV/H2O2 using response surface methodology

In this study, the photolytic decoloration of carmine (C.I. Natural Red 4) via UV radiation in the presence of H2O2 was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). According to analysis of variance (ANOVA) results, the proposed model can be used to navigate the design space. It was found that the response of carmine degradation is very sensitive to the independent factors of carmine concentration, H2O2 concentration, pH and reaction time. The proposed model for D-optimal design fitted very well with the experimental data with R2 and Radj2 correlation coefficients of 0.998 and 0.997, respectively.