In this work, a fluidized bed reactor was investigated theoretically and experimentally for the catalytic ozonation of phenol-like pollutants. First, an interface tracking sub-model dealing with the individual motion of ozone bubbles in the continuous phase, and a discrete particle sub-model accounting for the trajectories of the solid particles were embedded accordingly into a hybrid CFD framework. Second, the effect of physicochemical properties including the surface tension and fluid viscosity was thoroughly evaluated at different hydrodynamic flow regimes. Afterwards, the influence of ozone velocity was quantified both on the gas and liquid superficial velocities and on the detoxification efficiency of liquid pollutants. Here, the interface tracking-discrete particle hybrid model was found to slightly overestimate radial bubble velocities being almost negligible in the center region of the fluidized bed reactor. As the surface tension increased, the mineralization efficiency was considerably lower and became higher when low-viscosity conditions were used for the ozonation of organic pollutants. Finally, the morphological features of interstitial flow maps at different hydrodynamic and reactive catalytic ozonation conditions highlighted the occurrence of bubble plume-like structures which affected the overall decontamination efficiency of phenol-like pollutants within the gas-liquid-solid ozonation reactor. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.