Removal of Toluene in Air by a Non-thermal Plasma-Catalytic Reactor Using MnOx/ZSM-5

Abstract

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor at non-thermal plasma (NTP) in combination with catalysts was used to remove toluene in air. Several manganese oxides catalysts with ZSM-5 zeolite as the carrier have been prepared for plasma-catalytic degradation of toluene. The prepared catalysts were characterized utilizing the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), H2 temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and N2 adsorption–desorption. And the residence time, plasma power, toluene concentration and specific input energy, which are critical operating factors in this process, were investigated. The experiment proved that the catalysts significantly improved the degradation effect of NTP, the conversion increased from 58 to 91.5% after loading MnOx/ZSM-5-300 at 750 ppm, and the improving trend became more obvious with the increase of concentration. The degradation of toluene can reach 92.4% at the optimal process parameters of residence time 5.8 s, initial concentration 1000 ppm, input power 30 W, SIE 6000 J/L. The results of the evaluation indicate that it is very effective to use MnOx/ZSM-5 catalyst combined with DBD-plasma for synergistic degradation of toluene at room temperature and a relatively low energy consumption.