Environmental remediation using catalytic ozonation with surface bonded bydrophobic heterogeneous catalysts

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In water and wastewater treatment processes, often chemicals (such as ozone, chlorine and its derivatives) are used to destroy harmful pollutants and microorganisms in water. Ozone is one of the most powerful chemicals that can potentially convert any organic water pollutant into CO2 and water and disinfect the water by killing microorganisms. Since ozonation of pollutants leaves no sludge residue, has minimum hazard to humans and is easily performed in one step with minimum space requirements; it is a method of choice for a large number of water and wastewater treatment problems. To increase the speed and reduce the cost of ozonation process it is possible to use suitable catalysts. Such a catalyst provides a desirable environment for both pollutants and ozone to come together on the catalyst active site at high concentration and to react preferentially. From the previous work, we have learned that long chains of perfluorocarbon groups bonded to an alumina support provide such a desirable medium for both ozone and hydrocarbon pollutants. The catalysts can increase speed of reaction and utilization efficiency of ozone leading to more desirable reaction conditions and lower cost of ozonation process. The long term goal of the proposed research program is understanding effect of different parameters on performance of ozonation catalyst and to use these findings to develop more effective catalysts for industrial use. The results of this study will increase our understanding of the nature of adsorption and heterogeneous catalytic reactions of ozone with pollutants in water. Development of a catalyst with high reaction rate and high ozone utilization efficiency will improve the technology and economics of using ozone in water and wastewater treatment processes. A compact, low cost ozonation system has many applications in water and wastewater treatment especially in remote areas and emergency relief camps.