A Combined multistage plasma and photocatalytic system for VOC removal

Abstract

One of the major air pollutants is volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A number of techniques for removing air pollutants are available such as adsorption, biofiltration and incineration. However, these techniques require further treatment and/or are energy-intensive leading to high treatment costs. Both plasma and photocatalysis are capable and economical alternatives since these two techniques can be operated at ambient conditions resulting in low energy consumption compared to the conventional methods. The main purpose of this work was to apply a combined plasma and photocatalytic system for VOC removal. A four-stage four-stage plasma and photocatalytic reactor system was setup to investigate the oxidation of benzene. An increase in either applied voltage or stage number of the plasma reactors enhanced benzene conversion and CO2 selectivity, which is in contrast with the effects pf freqiemcu amd feed f;pw rate The commercial TiO2 (Degussa P25), sol-gel TiO2, and 1%Pt/sol-gel TiO2 were used as photocatalysts. The presence of all studied photocatalysts increased the benzene conversion as well as the CO2 selectivity. The synergistic effect of photocatalysts presented in the plasma reactor was resulted from the activation of TiO2 by the energy generated from the plasma