Degradation of aniline by pulsed discharge plasma in hydrothermal conditions

Abstract

Hydrothermality, as it is applicable at relatively low temperatures, is regarded as efficient for the selective decomposition of industrial wastewater disposal containing organic pollutants. Electrical discharge produced by high-voltage pulsed power has gained attention as a recently developed method used to generate hydrothermality required to degrade organic pollutants in waste water as this method not only generates a hydroxyl radical, it also generates atomic oxygen with a high oxidation potential. Here, we utilize these conditions to study the removal characteristics for aniline and its products. The experiments were conducted at 353 K and 5 MPa using a batch type reactor. Intermediate compounds from the conversion of aniline in the aqueous products were identified by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and quantified using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Aniline can be considered representative of the aromatic ring structures present in waste water. The maximum aniline conversion was 30.21 % with a 10000 times pulsed discharge plasma. The conversion of aniline increased with the existence of the electric filed which produced by pulsed discharge plasma. The results suggest the use of pulsed plasma is effective at the decomposition of aniline in hydrothermal conditions.