Enhanced Mass Transfer of Ozone and Emerging Pollutants through a Gas-Solid-Liquid Reaction Interface for Efficient...

Ozone (O₃), as an environmentally friendly oxidant, is widely used to remove emerging pollutants and ensure the safety of the water supply, whereas the restricted accessibility of O₃ and limited collision frequency between pollutants and O₃ will inevitably reduce the ozonation efficiency. To promote the chemical reactions between O₃ and target pollutants, here we developed a novel gas-solid-liquid reaction interface dominated triphase ozonation system using a functional hydrophobic membrane with an adsorption layer as the O₃ distributor and place where chemical reactions occurred. In the triphase system, the functional hydrophobic membrane simultaneously improved the interface adsorption performance of emerging pollutants and the access pathway of O₃, leading to a marked enhancement of interfacial pollutant concentration and O₃ levels. These synergistic qualities result in high ciprofloxacin (CIP) removal efficiency (94.39%) and fast apparent reaction rate constant (k_app, 2.75 × 10^-2 min^-1) versus a traditional O₃ process (41.82% and 0.48 × 10^-2 min^-1, respectively). In addition, this triphase system was an advanced oxidation process involving radical participation and showed excellent degradation performance of multiple emerging pollutants. Our findings highlight the importance of gas-solid-liquid triphase reaction interface design and provide new insight into the efficient removal of emerging pollutants by the ozonation process.