Abstract: The degradation of nitrobenzene by ceramic-honeycomb catalyzed
ozonation was investigated. The results showed that the presence of ceramic
honeycombs significantly increased the oxidation rate of nitrobenzene by ozone
compared to the case of ozone oxidation alone. In this paper, the effects of
various factors on the catalytic oxidation were investigated, such as the
amount of catalysts, the ozone dosage, the temperature, the pH value and the
presence of tert-butanol. With the addition of tert-butanol the removal of
nitrobenzene decreased sharply, which appeared to support that, the degradation
of nitrobenzene by ozonation followed a radical type mechanism. The EPR
experiments verified that higher nitrobenzene removal rate was attributed to
more OH radicals generated in the catalyzed ozonation than ozonation alone.
Keywords: ozone, catalytic ozonation, ceramic-honeycomb, nitrobenzene, advanced oxidation, water treatment