Ozonation of azo dye Acid Red 14 in a microporous tube-in-tube microchannel reactor: decolorization and mechanism.

The ozonation of synthetic wastewater containing azo dye Acid Red 14 (AR 14) was investigated in a high-throughput microporous tube-in-tube microchannel reactor. The effects of design and operating parameters such as micropore size, annular channel width, liquid volumetric flow rate, ozone-containing gas volumetric flow rate, initial pH of the solution and initial AR 14 concentration on decolorization efficiency and ozone utilization efficiency were studied with the aim to optimize the operation conditions. An increase of the ozone-containing gas or liquid flow rate could greatly intensify the gas-liquid mass transfer. Reducing the micropore size and the annular channel width led to a higher mass transfer rate and was beneficial to decolorization. Decolorization efficiency increased with an increasing ozone-containing gas volumetric flow rate, as well as a decreasing liquid volumetric flow rate and initial AR 14 concentration. The optimum initial pH for AR 14 ozonation was determined as 9.0. The degradation kinetics was observed to be a pseudo-first-order reaction with respect to AR 14 concentration. The difference between the decolorization and COD removal efficiency indicated that many intermediates existed in AR 14 ozonation. The formation of six organic intermediates during ozonation was detected by GC/MS, while the concentration of nitrate and sulfate ions was determined by ion chromatography. The possible degradation mechanism of AR 14 in aqueous solution was proposed.