Abstract
Non-thermal plasma (NTP) is a promising technology for the improvement of indoor air quality (IAQ) by removing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) through advanced oxidation process (AOP). In this paper, authors developed a laboratory scale dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor which generates atmospheric NTP to study the removal of low-concentration formaldehyde (HCHO), a typical indoor air VOC in the built environment associated with cancer and leukemia, under different processing conditions. Strong ionization NTP was generated between the DBD electrodes by a pulse power zero-voltage switching flyback transformer (ZVS-FBT), which caused ionization of air molecules leading to active species formation to convert HCHO into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O). The impact of key electrical and physical processing parameters i.e. discharge power (P), initial concentration (Cin), flow rate (F), and relative humidity (RH) which affect the formaldehyde removal efficiency (ɳ) were studied to determine optimum conditions. Results show that, the correlation coefficient (R2) of removal efficiency dependence on the processing parameters follow the order R2 (F) = 0.99 > R2 (RH) = 0.96, > R2 (Cin) = 0.94 > R2 (P) = 0.93. The removal efficiency reached 99% under the optimum conditions of P = 0.6 W, Cin = 0.1 ppm, F = 0.2 m3/h, and RH = 65% with no secondary pollution. The study provided a theoretical and experimental basis for the application of DBD plasma for air purification in the built environment.
Highlights
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a critical factor for environmental health safety in the built environment, which often has substandard conditions due to emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs
As the strength of ionization is the outstanding feature of the dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor for indoor air purification, the removal of HCHO, this section analyzed the electrical and ionization characteristics of the DBD reactor using the digital oscilloscope and the effect on removal efficiency
The actual discharge phenomena is filamentary in nature, in which high energy fast moving electrons have collided the air molecules resulting in an electrically energy dense ionized medium comprising active species and energetic electrons, non-thermal plasma (NTP)
Summary
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a critical factor for environmental health safety in the built environment, which often has substandard conditions due to emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). What’s more, the emergence of strict regulations on VOC emission levels poses the mandate to consider precision, high efficiency, and high accuracy in the decomposition of formaldehyde In this pursuit, reactor efficiency, mechanism, and relevant degradation reactions are key treatment p arameters. Research on the application of atmospheric Non-thermal plasma (NTP) generated at ambient conditions for indoor air purification has heightened mainly due to the advantages of high VOC removal efficiency, high energy efficiency, and no secondary pollution. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is a good source of atmospheric NTP with low-cost plasma for indoor air VOC pollution control. Compared with other IAQ improvement systems, the DBD plasma technology has the advantage of quick-process cycle, high operation efficiency, and no secondary p ollution
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