NO removal in a photo-triggered discharge reactor

This paper presents the first study of a new type of reactor, the so-called photo-triggered reactor, for gas cleaning by non-thermal plasmas. Compared to the classical discharges used for this application, it allows the production of large volumes of uniformly excited plasmas without filamentary structures and glow to are transition. Experimental and modellization studies of a 50 cm(3) photo-triggered reactor have been performed. Chemical efficiency and specific energy consumption for NO removal in N-2/O-2/NO mixtures have been determined. It is shown that the NO removal efficiency is a sensitive function of the input energy but does not depend on the initial reduced electric field, (E/N)(0), for values higher than 200 Td. Depending on mixture composition, NO destruction efficiencies between 30 and 100% are achieved in only one shot with energetic costs in the range 15 to 50 eV per removed NO molecule (22-75 g [NO] kW(-1) h(-1)) for input specific energy lower than 150 J l(-1). Moreover, in dry air, an ozone production efficiency as high as 64 g [O](3) kW(-1) h(-1) (28 eV mol(-1)) is obtained, demonstrating the excellent capability of the photo-triggered discharges to produce large amounts of atoms and radicals which in turn can reduce or oxidize the pollutant molecules. All these results point out the effectiveness of the photo-triggered discharges to homogeneously produce large volumes of plasma which could be efficiently used for gas cleaning applications.