Gas purification by the plasma-oxidation of a rotating sacrificial electrode

Abstract

A novel approach for the purification of inert gases by means of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma has been demonstrated for argon and nitrogen. A rotating sacrificial electrode has been employed together with an electrode cleaning system to remove passivating product films during the plasma processing and thus enhance capacity and reaction rates. The purification of nitrogen using this approach was shown to be quite successful. The conditioning of technical argon yielded rotational temperatures well beyond 150 °C, thus being unable to remove the water content effectively.