Enhancing catalytic ozonation activity of MCM-41 via one-step incorporating fluorine and iron: The interfacial reaction induced by hydrophobic sites and Lewis acid sites.

Fe-MCM-41 had been widely used as ozonation catalyst, however, the existence of large amount of hydrophilic silanol hindered its interfacial reaction with O and pollutants. To solve this problem, F-Fe-MCM-41 was synthesized by co-doping F and Fe into the framework of MCM-41 to replace silanol with Si-F groups through a one-step hydrothermal method. F introduced hydrophobic sites which contributed to more ibuprofen (IBP) chemisorption on the surface of F-Fe-MCM-41. Moreover, doping F also enhanced the acidity, which accelerated O decomposition into •OH. F-Fe-MCM-41/O exhibited notably activity with 96.6% IBP removal efficiency within 120 min, while only 78.5% and 80.9% in O alone and Fe-MCM-41/O, respectively. Surface Lewis acid sites and metal hydroxyl groups were considered as important factors for O activation and •OH generation. F-Fe-MCM-41 exhibited excellent catalytic performance under acidic and alkaline conditions. Comparative experiments revealed that F doping improved the interfacial reaction, especially the interfacial electron transfer, which resulted in the high catalytic activity of F-Fe-MCM-41. F-Fe-MCM-41 possessed good stability and reusability, with only 5.7% decline for IBP removal in five successive cycles. Furthermore, the possible degradation path of IBP was proposed according to DFT calculation and GC-MS analysis.