Adsorption and Plasma Decomposition of Gaseous Acetaldehyde on Fibrous Activated Carbon

Abstract

In this paper, adsorption and nonthermal plasma decomposition of gaseous acetaldehyde were studied using barrier-discharge plasma reactor, in which fibrous activated-carbon textile (ACT) was used as both an electrode and adsorbent. The acetaldehyde molecule was adsorbed on ACT depending on the concentration of gaseous acetaldehyde. When acetaldehyde concentration was 500 ppm or lower, the amount of adsorbed acetaldehyde was estimated by Henry's equation. The adsorbed acetaldehyde on ACT sheet was decomposed by the barrier-discharge plasma generated by applying high-voltage ac regulated by a neon transformer. When 200 ppm of acetaldehyde was fed continuously to the plasma reactor, 30, 45, and 120 ppm of acetaldehyde remained, with applied voltage of 13, 10, and 5 kVp, respectively. We also checked electric energy efficiency on the decomposition of acetaldehyde. Although 10 or 13 kVp of plasma has the same energy efficiency, 5 kVp of plasma was less effective for the decomposition because of unstableness of plasma generation. These results suggested that 10 kVp or more high-voltage ac is suitable for the decomposition of acetaldehyde by using ACT as the high-voltage electrode.