NOx removal methods using plasma chemical reactions in nonthermal plasmas h
ave been widely studied. In this paper, the effects of the addition of fly
ash on NO, removal using short-pulsed discharge plasmas are described. Fly
ash which had been collected from a coal-burning thermal electrical power p
lant was used. Experiments were performed using four different mixtures of
gases which included NO. These were (N-2 + NO), (N-2 + NO + O-2), (N-2 + NO
+ H2O), and (N-2 + NO + O-2 + H2O). These gas mixtures were used either wi
th or without the addition of fly ash, The initial concentration of NO was
fixed at 200 ppm (NO parts per million of the gas mixture). The study of th
e N-x (NO + NO2) removal was performed with the fly ash, as it is relevant
to real situations in coal power plants. The results show that the presence
of fly ash decreased the NOx removal rate slightly in the case of dry gas
mixtures while it increased the NOx removal rate substantially in the case
of wet gas mixtures. These results suggest that the presence of fly ash in
the flue gases, which also contain a few percentages of moisture, would be
advantageous to the treatment of flue gases emitted from thermal power plan
ts for the removal of nitrogen oxides.