Influence of energy efficiency on VOCs decomposition in non-thermal plasma reactor

Abstract

In order to promote the plasma technology for commercial application and improve the energy efficiency of non-thermal plasma, a series of experiments on energy efficiency of plasma reactor were carried out for volatile organic compounds removal. This research adopts a pipe-line reaction device with plasma generated by dielectric barrier discharge technology to examine the effects of different experimental parameters, including medium packing, electric field strength, the pollutant initial concentration, and gas velocity, on the energy efficiency. In the study, four kinds of packed materials were packed into the plasma reactor: a complex catalyst, Ba0.8Sr0.2Zr0.1Ti0.9O3, MnO2/γ-Al2O3, and γ-Al2O3. Through optimizing the experimental parameters, the best decomposition efficiency of toluene and the best energy efficiency were achieved. The experimental results show that the energy efficiency has a trend from increasing to decreasing with increasing pollutant gas velocity, and the energy efficiency changes from increasing to decreasing with the increasing of initial concentration of pollutants, and the decomposition efficiency and the energy efficiency have the same order from high to low with different packed materials in the plasma reactors, in turn, packed with complex catalyst, Ba0.8Sr0.2Zr0.1Ti0.9O3, MnO2/γ-Al2O3, γ-Al2O3 and no padding. The optimized parameters for toluene decomposition are: the gas flow rate of 2 mL/min, the initial concentration range of 1500–2000 mg/m3, the field strength intensity of 9.6 kV/cm, and the plasma reactor packed with a complex catalyst, which results in the best energy efficiency of 10 g/kWh. This research provides not only a new way to develop the plasma technology, but also a reference for the commercial application.