Materials Sciences and Applications, 2020, 11, 382-400 https://www.scirp.org/journal/msa ISSN Online: 2153-1188 ISSN Print: 2153-117X DOI: 10.4236/msa.2020.116026 Jun. 29, 2020 382 Materials Sciences and Applications Preparation and Characterization of Magnetic Banana Peels Biochar for Fenton Degradation of Methylene Blue Eric Sakué Ngankam 1 , Lemankreo Dai-Yang 1 , Baissassou Debina 1 , Abdellaziz Baçaoui 2 , Abdelrani Yaacoubi 2 , Abdoul Ntieche Rahman 3* 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Maroua, Maroua, Cameroon 2 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science Semlalia, University of Cady Ayyad, Marrakech, Morocco 3 Department of Chemistry, Higher Teachers’ Training College of Bertoua, University of Ngaoundéré, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon Abstract Co-precipitation method was used for the synthesis of biochar/Fe 3 O 4 to hete- rogeneously degrade methylene blue (MB) in an aqueous medium. This cata- lyst was characterized by different techniques such as Fourier Transform Infra- red (FTIR) Spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Micro- scopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX) and Raman Mi- croscopy. The analysis highlighted the presence of iron oxides on the surface of the biochar in the form of magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ). Catalytic tests performed on this composite showed significant degradation and simple magnetic separation in the solution for reuse. Maximum degradation was carried out after stirring it for 90 minutes in an MB aqueous solution at different concentrations. The per- centages of degradation were 99% and 98.6% 93.3% and 91% for concentra- tions of MB 40 mg/L and 60 mg/L, 80 mg/L and 120 mg/L respectively. The reactions followed a second-order kinetics with correlation coefficients r 2 = 0.9598, 0.9247, 0.9548 and 0.9614 for the same concentrations of MB at pH = 2, 0.2 mL/L H 2 O 2 and 15 mg of biochar/Fe 3 O 4 . This work provides a simple and an effective method for the preparation of biochar/Fe 3 O 4 and its use for the oxidation of MB by means of heterogeneous Fenton. Keywords Co-Precipitation, Magnetic Separation, Composite, Heterogeneous Fenton 1. Introduction Water pollution by dyes has become a concern for the world’s population for dec- ades. These dyes are listed in more than 100,000 types with an annual pollution How to cite this paper: Ngankam, E.S., Dai-Yang, L., Debina, B., Baçaoui, A., Yaa- coubi, A. and Rahman, A.N. (2020) Prepara- tion and Characterization of Magnetic Banana Peels Biochar for Fenton Degradation of Methylene Blue. Materials Sciences and Ap- plications, 11, 382-400. https://doi.org/10.4236/msa.2020.116026 Received: October 25, 2019 Accepted: June 26, 2020 Published: June 29, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access