Scalable non-thermal plasma trielectrode reactor: A theoretical and experimental study on carbon monoxide removal in a nitrogen atmosphere

Abstract

Non-thermal plasma technology has a great interest for very diverse environmental applications. In this work a trielectrode non-thermal plasma reactor was studied for carbon monoxide (CO) removal, in a nitrogen (N2) atmosphere, both experimentally and theoretically. The reactor combines a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) with a remote third electrode, DC-biased, to extend the DBD generated plasma region with long streamers permeating its cross section. Also, a theoretical model to predict reactor efficiency, considering possible chemical reactions involved in CO degradation was applied. A good correspondence between experimental and theoretical efficiency values was found. It was concluded that the most relevant reaction was the isocyanate (NCO) radical production. The byproducts of NCO degradation, nitrogen monoxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), were experimentally detected.