Plasma-assisted synthesis of N2O5 from NO2 in air at atmospheric pressure using a dielectric pellet bed reactor

It has been demonstrated that a dielectric packed pellet-bed plasma reactor , operating on a mixture of NO2 in air at atmospheric pressure can be used as an efficient method for the synthesis of dinitrogen pentoxide, N2O5 The reactor is packed with glass beads and operates at high frequency (10-13 kH z) and high voltage (Vpk-pk < 30 kV) Typically, the energy density is 38 J l(-1) and 45 ppm of NO2 is converted into 53 ppm of N2O5 The synthesis of N 2O5 is found to be plasma-assisted in the sense that sources of nitrogen in addition to the initial NO2 are converted into N2O5 by the plasma. There i s an energy cost of similar to 180 eV for every molecule of N2O5 produced. The possible role played by surface and heterogeneous effects in the pellet bed reactor is considered.