Abatement of toluene from gas streams by using dielectric barrier discharge

Abstract

Abatement of gaseous toluene via alterable frequency dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma in a coaxial cylindrical reactor was carried out at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. During plasma processing to decompose toluene, discharge power was analyzed by using the Q-V Lissajous diagram. It suggested that, the specific energy density (SED) increased with the increasing of applied voltage and AC frequency, respectively. Furthermore, the experiment was focused on the effect of gas flow rate and initial concentration on the toluene abatement efficiency and abatement amount. It is obviously that the toluene abatement efficiency descends when gas flow rate and initial concentration is increased, however with the increasing of gas flow rate and initial concentration, the toluene abatement amount ascended earlier, and then began to descend. Moreover whether voltage or AC frequency is fixed, gas flow rate of the largest abatement amount is 6.3 cm/s, and initial concentration of the largest abatement amount is 2066 mg/m <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> . With the increasing of the applied voltage, the toluene energy efficiency descended. Comparing various gas flow rates, it can be found that η <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Energy</sub> (6.3cm/s)>; η <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Energy</sub> (10.1cm/s)>; η <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Energy</sub> (2.5cm/s). Furthermore, when applied voltage ascended from 10kV to 15kV, the energy efficiency dropped rapidly. But when applied voltage increased from 15kV to 20 kV, the energy efficiency dropped slowly.