Energy efficient plasma processing of gaseous emission using a short pulse discharge

This letter reports efficient treatment of NO emission with a transient, nonequilibrium plasma created by pulsed corona discharge, The transient plasma (approximate to 50 ns) is found to reduce NO emission by 50% in a flow of 2-25 lis with energy cost approximate to 10-20 eV/molecule, corresponding to a fraction of source power of approximate to 5%. The efficiency of NOx reduction is a complex function of parameters that include pulse width, pulse polarity, current density, repetition rate, and reactor design. It was found that the best efficiencies are correlated with a law current density (0.2 A/cm(2))and high repetition rate (1 kHz) under high flow rate. Careful optimization of all these parameters is required to reach cost effective NOx reduction. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.