Degradation of cationic dye methylene blue by ozonation assisted with kaolin

Abstract An enhanced ozonation process, methylene blue (MB) wastewater treated by MnO2/O3 assisted with kaolin in a slurry reactor, at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, MB wastewater can be effectively purified, a chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 88.3% and a decoloration rate of 98.9% were obtained in 10 min at pH 11. Compared with MnO2/O3 catalytic ozonation (16.0% of decoloration and 33.3% of COD reduction), decoloration and COD reduction were markedly increased, indicating that kaolin can significantly improve the catalytic ozonation process. According to the experimental results, the hypothetical mechanism of degradation and the reaction kinetics were also proposed. COD reduction can be described by a second-order model and the reaction rate constant in the presence of kaolin was higher than that of absence of kaolin.