Pulsed-plasma treatment of polluted gas using wet-/low-temperature corona reactors

Application of pulsed plasma for gas cleaning is gaining prominence in recent years, mainly from the energy consideration point of view. Normally, the gas treatment is carried out at or above room temperature by the conventional dry-type corona reactor. However, this treatment is still inadequate for the removal of certain stable gases present in the exhaust/flue gas mixture. The authors report here some interesting results of the treatment of such stable gases like N₂ O with pulsed plasma at subambient temperature. Also reported in this paper are improvements in DeNO/DeNO_x efficiency using unconventional wet-type reactors, designed and fabricated by us, and operating at different subambient temperatures, DeNO/DeNO_x by the pulsed-plasma process is mainly due to oxidation, but reduction takes place at the same time. When the wet-type reactor was used, the NO ₂ product was absorbed by water film and higher DeNO_x efficiency could be achieved. Apart from laboratory tests on simulated gas mixtures, field tests were also carried out on the exhaust gas of an 8-kW diesel engine. A comparative analysis of the various tests are presented, together with a note on the energy consideration