Catalytic ozonation of Orange-G through highly interactive contributions of hematite and SBA-16 - To better understand azo-dye oxidation in nature.

Hematite-SBA-16 mixture (HS) exhibited high catalytic activity in Orange-G (OG) ozonation in water. Total OG discoloration was achieved in half the time required with hematite or SBA-16 alone, all UV-Vis bands disappeared in less than 2 min. Liquid chromatography- Mass spectrometry (LC-MS) revealed that OG ozonation triggers via both hydroxylation and desulfonation of the aromatic rings into specific intermediates. Prolonged ozonation in the presence of hematite and SBA-16 alone resulted in different distributions of common derivatives. The latter were not detected after 25 min ozonation with HS. Stochastic modeling of the evolution in time of the UV-Vis bands of OG revealed strong binary interaction between the initial pH and catalyst concentration. This was explained in terms of reciprocal contributions of: i. the catalytic properties of hematite in spite of its low porosity; ii. the high specific surface area of SBA-16 for adsorption and surface reaction notwithstanding its low intrinsic catalytic activity. The weak basicity of SBA-16 surface seems to play a key-role in adsorption. These findings are of great interest for envisaging flexible oxidative treatments, where Fe containing soils or mixtures of sand and rust may also act as catalyst for total mineralization of various azo-dyes, regardless to their structures.