Freon destruction in a nanosecond corona discharge

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:226930

Akhmedzhanov, R A; Vikharev, A L; Gorbachev, A M ^[1]

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1. Inst. of Applied Physics, Novgorod (Russian Federation); and others

One of the main reasons for destruction of the ozone layer is high content of freon in the Earth atmosphere. The life time of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) in the stratosphere is tens of years, therefore, along with abandonment of the use of CFC compositions. of importance is the search for efficient ways to purify both industrial gaseous wastes and the atmosphere proper from pollution. Among various purification methods the most promising seems to be the method based on freon destruction during processes of dissociative electron attachment. Freon molecules in this case are destroyed selectively mainly at the stage of plasma decay by cold electrons, for which the constant of dissociative attachment is especially high (k{sub a} = 10{sup -7} - 10{sup -9}cm{sup 3}/s). By that, as the source of electrons we propose using nanosecond discharges with a high level of the reduced electric field, E/N, when the main share of the pulse energy goes into ionization, and gas heating is insignificant. These requirements are best met by the use of barrier and pulse corona discharge, which are widely employed for ozone generation and purification of gaseous wastes. Plasma of such discharges is composed of chaotically arising nanosecond microdischarges. The possibility to purify atmosphere from freons directly by means of a nanosecond microwave discharge produced the troposphere by ground-based sources is also studied. An important problem for the said applications, along with estimation of efficiency of freon destruction is determination of chemical composition of the products that appear at the post-discharge stage as the result of plasma chemical reaction. This presentation gives results of experimental studies of freon destruction in a pulse-periodic nanosecond corona discharge.

• OSTI ID: 226930
• Report Number(s): CONF-950749--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

40 CHEMISTRY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
66 PHYSICS
CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS
CORONA DISCHARGES
DISSOCIATION
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
FREONS
OZONE LAYER