Hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide formation in the AC water-spray gliding arc reactor

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to study the formation rates and energy yields of H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> and H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> O <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> formed from pure water exposed to a non-thermal AC plasma-gliding arc reactor equipped with a spray nozzle. The gliding arc reactor utilizes an AC electrical discharge developed in a gas flowing between two electrodes supplied by one high voltage transformer. Previous works showed that the efficiency of reactive and molecular species formation in water treated by non-thermal plasma depends on the gas-liquid interfacial contact area between the water and the plasma zone. Spraying the liquid through a special two-way nozzle directly into the plasma zone is an effective method to enhance the efficiency of chemical species formation in gliding arc reactors. In the present work, the focus is on hydrogen formation from water spray exposed to plasma generated by an AC gliding arc discharge using Ar as carrier gas for different electrical powers of the discharge and for different water flow rates. The formation rates of hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide were also determined.