Abstract
Plasma nitrogen fixation allows an alternative ammonia production path compared to the classical industrial Haber-Bosch process, due to the emergence of low-cost and environment friendly renewable energy. However, the high energy cost due to high-temperature reaction condition and reverse reactions in typical “warm” plasmas (gliding arc and rotating gliding arc) lies as a bottleneck of its industrial application. As a possible solution to enhance the efficiency of the process, the effect of thermal gas quenching on nitrogen fixation by rotating arc plasma are investigated. The NOx (i.e. NO, NO2) yield, energy cost, and NOx selectivity are obtained under variable operating conditions (i.e. oxygen fraction in the feed gas, arc length, specific energy input, varying quench gas and quenching ratio). With the help of quenching, the maximum achievable NOx concentration was enhanced from 5.16 to 5.8%. The enhancement is achieved by mitigating loss reactions through quenching and it is supported by the integration of experimental findings, plasma diagnostics using optical emission spectroscopy, and the application of a zero-dimensional chemical kinetic model.
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