Influence of Operation Conditions on the Performance of Non-thermal Plasma Technology for VOC Pollution Control

Abstract

The viability of non-thermal plasma (NTP) systems for the treatment of various VOC types was assessed. Also evaluated were the individual and collective influences of selected process parameters on the NTP-VOC systems’ performances. To this end, the process and performance evaluations of the reported NTP-VOC pairs, based on the established (VOC molecular weight, input voltage, specific input energy (SIE), flow rate, and degradation efficiency) and calculated (processing rate, system efficiency, cumulative energy density (ε), and space-time yield) parameters were reported. With a catalyst, an increase in the gas flow rate enhanced the processing rate of the system by approximately 50%. At the same time, the influence of a on the byproducts remains unpredictable. Also, the correlation values of the processing rate against the system efficiency were significantly high and positive (0.9423). About 87% of the calculated attributes correlated with the double-barrier discharge reactor. The flow rate and input voltage evinced as the most influential parameters for all NTP-VOC systems. Moreover, the estimated ε (J/L) is more reliable than the SIE for performance comparison. Conclusively, the processing rate, space-time yield, and energy density are the derived attributes that should be considered before any NTP-VOC process design.