ELECTRON-BEAM AND PULSED CORONA PROCESSING OF VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS IN GAS STREAMS

This paper presents experimental results on non-thermal plasma process ing of atmospheric-pressure gas streams containing dilute concentratio ns of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This investigation us ed a compact electron beam reactor and a pulsed corona reactor to stud y the effects of background gas composition and gas temperature on the decomposition chemistry and electrical energy efficiency. The electri cal energy consumption is characterized for the decomposition of a var iety of VOCs, including carbon tetrachloride, trichloroethylene, methy lene chloride, benzene, acetone and methanol. For most of the VOCs inv estigated, electron beam processing is more energy efficient than puls ed corona processing. For VOCs (such as carbon tetrachloride) that req uire copious amounts of electrons for its decomposition, electron beam processing is remarkably more energy efficient. For some VOCs the dec omposition process is limited by their reaction rate with the plasma-p roduced radicals and/or by the occurrence of back reactions. In these cases, the energy consumption can be minimized by operating at high (b ut non-combusting) temperatures.