Mechanism for enhanced degradation of clofibric acid in aqueous by catalytic ozonation over MnOx/SBA-15

•Clofibric acid (CA) is efficiently mineralized by O3/MnOx/SBA-15.•Adsorption of CA and its intermediates on MnOx/SBA-15 is proved unimportant.•Initiation of hydroxyl radicals (OH) is enhanced in O3/MnOx/SBA-15.•Uniformly distributed MnOx accounts for the high activity of MnOx/SBA-15.•Degradation routes of CA in ozonation alone and catalytic ozonation are proposed. Comparative experiments were conducted to investigate the catalytic ability of MnOx/SBA-15 for the ozonation of clofibric acid (CA) and its reaction mechanism. Compared with ozonation alone, the degradation of CA was barely enhanced, while the removal of TOC was significantly improved by catalytic ozonation (O3/MnOx/SBA-15). Adsorption of CA and its intermediates by MnOx/SBA-15 was proved unimportant in O3/MnOx/SBA-15 due to the insignificant adsorption of CA and little TOC variation after ceasing ozone in stopped-flow experiment. The more remarkably inhibition effect of sodium bisulfite (NaHSO3) on the removal of TOC in catalytic ozonation than in ozonation alone elucidated that MnOx/SBA-15 facilitated the generation of hydroxyl radicals (OH), which was further verified by electron spin-resonance spectroscopy (ESR). Highly dispersed MnOx on SBA-15 were believed to be the main active component in MnOx/SBA-15. Some intermediates were indentified and different degradation routes of CA were proposed in both ozonation alone and catalytic ozonation. The amounts of small molecular carboxylic acids (i.e., formic acid (FA), acetic acid (AA) and oxalic acid (OA)) generated in catalytic ozonation were lower than in ozonation alone, resulting from the generation of more OH.