Degradation of Sodium Acetate by Catalytic Ozonation Coupled with a Mn-Functionalized Fly Ash: Reaction Parameters and Mechanism

Supported ozone catalysts usually take alumina, activated carbon, mesoporous molecular sieve, graphene, etc. as the carrier for loading metal oxide via the impregnation method, sol–gel method and precipitation method. In this work, a Mn-modified fly ash catalyst was synthesized to reduce the consumption and high unit price of traditional catalyst carriers like alumina. As a solid waste discharged from coal-fired power plants fueled by coal, fly ash also has porous spherical fine particles with constant surface area and activity, abd is expected to be applied as the main component in the synthesis of ozone catalyst. After the pretreatment process and modification with MnOx, the obtained Mn-modified fly ash exhibited stronger specific surface area and porosity combined with considerable ozone catalytic performance. We used sodium acetate as the contaminant probe, which is difficult to directly decompose with ozone as the end product of ozone oxidation, to evaluate the performance of this Mn-modified fly. It was found that ozone molecules can be transformed to generate ·OH, ·O2− and 1O2 for the further oxidation of sodium acetate. The oxygen vacancy produced via Mn modification plays a crucial role in the adsorption and excitation of ozone. This work demonstrates that fly ash, as an industrial waste, can be synthesized as a potential industrial catalyst with stable physical and chemical properties, a simple preparation method and low costs.