Characterization of a plasma reactor for gas treatment which combines a dielectric barrier discharge and a corona discharge.

J. GALLEGO; F. MINOTTI; L. GIULIANI; D. GRONDONA

Zinnowitz

Congreso; HAKONEXIV, 14th International Symposium on High Pressure Low Temperature Plasma Chemistry; 2014

A plasma reactor for treatment of polluted gas is presented. The reactor combines a dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) with a corona discharge (CD) [1]. The DBD is generated by applying an alternating high voltage signal between two circular aluminum plate electrodes attached to opposite sides of a disc made of dielectric material. The CD is generated applying a continuous negative high voltage to an external cylindrical mesh electrode, coaxial with the DBD electrode system and fixed to the inner wall of an insulating tube. The air gap between the edge of the DBD electrode system and the mesh electrode is approximately 20 mm. The discharge is composed of a train of streamers crossing the gap through which the gas to be treated flows. Several DBD electrode systems can be connected in parallel along the reactor axis. Hence, a large plasma volume can be established with a high density of streamers. Figure 1 shows a photograph of the reactor. In this work, to characterize the discharge, current-voltage measurement and optical emission spectroscopy are applied. Also, an experimental and theoretical study of the efficiency of the reactor for the removal of NO in a N2 atmosphere is presented. The theoretical efficiency resulted in good agreement with the experimental one, validating the model. The reactor shows a very good performance with a low energy cost per removed molecule.