Visualization of In Situ Oxidation Process Between Plasma and Liquid Phase in Two Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Reactors Using Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence Technique

Abstract

Cold atmospheric plasma is considered to be a promising approach for decontamination purposes, e.g. dyeing water decoloration. In order to better understand the complex mechanism of the plasma physics coupled with the plasma chemistry involved in the interaction of the polluted water with the discharge plasma, a novel approach was proposed to study the in situ oxidation process between the plasma and liquid phase in two dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactors with different bottom shape (concave vs. plane), by using the planar laser induced fluorescence technique to visualize the process dynamics. Rhodamine B was employed as the tracer dye, which was gradually decomposed by the combined effect of the chemically active radicals (OH, O, H2O2, etc.) as well as the intense UV radiation in the DBD plasma process. The results showed that the DBD plasma filaments induced certain fluctuation on the Rhodamine B liquid layer, which accordingly intensified the mass transfer to a large extent thus accelerated the oxidation process. The comparison of the measured concentration fields in the two DBD plasma reactors illustrated that the DBD reactor #1 with concave bottom showed higher oxidation efficiency than the DBD reactor #2 with plane bottom. Additionally, the experiments demonstrated that the oxidation efficiency in the DBD plasma water treatment was much better than that in the reactor with pure oxidation by ozone gas, which can be further improved by injecting the additional oxygen gas bubbles into the liquid phase in the plasma reactor.