Ozonation of benzothiazole saturated-activated carbons: influence of carbon chemical surface properties

The combined or sequential use of ozone and activated carbon to treat toxic effluents has increased in recent years. However, little is known about the influence of carbon surface active sites on ozonation of organic adsorbed pollutants. This paper presents experimental results on the effect of metal oxides and oxygenated surface groups on gaseous ozonation of spent activated carbons. Benzothiazole (BT) was selected as a target organic compound in this study due to its environmental concern. Activated carbons with different chemical surface composition were prepared from a Filtrasorb-400 activated carbon. Pre-treatment included: ozonation, demineralisation, and deoxygenation of activated carbon. Ozonation experiments of BT saturated-activated carbons were conducted in a fixed bed reactor loaded with 2 g of carbon samples. The reactor was fed with an O2/O3 gas mixture (2 dm3/min, 5 g O3/h), for a given exposure time, in the range 10-120 min, at 298 K and 1 atm. Results show that extended gaseous ozonation of activated carbon saturated with BT led to the effective destruction of the adsorbate by oxidation reactions. Oxidation of BT adsorbed on activated carbon seemed to occur via both direct reaction with ozone molecules, and by oxygen radical species generated by catalytic ozone decomposition on metallic surface sites.