Water Surface Plasma Source for Large Area Water Treatment by Using Volume Dielectric Barrier Discharge

Abstract

The concept of a water surface plasma source (WSPS) was proposed to directly interact plasmas with water for large area water treatment, which is the type of volume dielectric barrier discharge (vDBD) with plate-to-plate. One electrode is submerged in water, while the other is floated in air, which is covered with a dielectric material. The characteristics of the WSPS were investigated by using a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) camera, voltage and current probes, and optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The electrochemical parameters of plasma-activated water (PAW, 2 L) after plasma treatment times of 3 min by the WSPS were analyzed by using a multiparameter meter. As results, the formation of the water wave due to plasma generation, caused by the effect of the induced polarization forces, was observed at the WSPS. By comparison with the tap water, the applied voltage of the distilled water required higher than 130% for stable operation of the WSPS due to lower electrical conductivity (EC). As gap distance between dielectric plate and water surface increased, the applied voltage increased. In addition, an increase of 2 mm in the water level from the lower electrode required an approximately 5% increase in applied voltages for the ignition and stable plasma generation of the WSPS. The dominant peaks that were for N2 species system in the spectrum of plasmas at the WSPS were analyzed by using the OES. In the case of distilled water, the pH values decreased from 6.25 to 4.24 and the EC increased from 2.00 to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$22.33 ~\mu \text{S} \cdot $ </tex-math></inline-formula> cm by using multiparameter meter during plasma treatment, whereas in the case of tap water, the effects on the pH and EC were insignificant.