Non-thermal plasma techniques for abatement of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- First Point Scientific, Inc., Agoura Hills, CA (United States)
Non-thermal plasma processing is an emerging technology for the abatement of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NO{sub x}) in atmospheric-pressure air streams. Either electrical discharge or electron beam methods can produce these plasmas. Each of these methods can be implemented in many ways. There are many types of electrical discharge reactors, the variants depending on the electrode configuration and electrical power supply (pulsed, AC or DC). Two of the more extensively investigated types of discharge reactors are based on the pulsed corona and dielectric-barrier discharge. Recently, compact low-energy (<200 keV) electron accelerators have been developed to meet the requirements of industrial applications such as crosslinking of polymer materials, curing of solvent-free coatings, and drying of printing inks. Special materials have also been developed to make the window thin and rugged. Some of these compact electron beam sources are already commercially available and could be utilized for many pollution control applications. In this paper we will present a comparative assessment of various nonthermal plasma reactors. The thrust of our work has been two-fold: (1) to understand the scalability of various non-thermal plasma reactors by focusing on the energy efficiency of the electron and chemical kinetics, and (2) to identify the byproducts to ensure that the effluent gases from the processor are either benign or much easier and less expensive to dispose of compared to the original pollutants. We will present experimental results using a compact electron beam reactor and various types of electrical discharge reactors. We have used these reactors to study the removal of NO{sub x} and a wide variety of VOCS. We have studied the effects of background gas composition and gas temperature on the decomposition chemistry.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 195785
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-122530; CONF-951261-1; ON: DE96004679
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Workshop on plasma-based environmental technologies, Berlin (Germany), 6-7 Dec 1995; Other Information: PBD: 4 Dec 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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