Dissolved Ozone Decomposition in Presence of Activated Carbon at Low pH: How Experimental Parameters Affect Observed Kinetics of the Process

Plenty of controversies have recently surrounded the mechanism and kinetics of ozone decomposition process in presence of activated carbon. We have decided to study and explain the source of these controversies, or at least identify it correctly. Several series of experiments were conducted and various parameters (activated carbon amount and grain size, initial ozone concentration, agitation speed) were modified over their course. It was found that widely accepted (pseudo)first-order kinetics cannot explain some observations, and the best fitting was found for half-order kinetics. Ozone decomposition mechanism explaining these results was proposed.