Decomposition of dilute trichloroethylene by nonthermal plasma processing-gas flow rate, catalyst, and ozone effect

Decomposition performance of dilute (100-1000 ppm) trichloroethylene (TCE) contaminated in air by using nonthermal plasma processing was studied to improve the decomposition efficiency. Three kinds of experiments were performed. One is the observation of the decomposition efficiency related to the processing gas flow rate. There exists an optimal gas flow rate for our reactor. The second experiment is the plasma decomposition performance observation related to the catalysts. Some catalysts, such as vanadium oxide (V₂O₅) or tungsten oxide (WO₃) on/in titanium oxide (TiO₂) pellets, improve decomposition performance. Indirect plasma processing (plasma processed pure air is mixed with TCE contaminated air) suggests the existence of very active oxidation radicals whose lifetime is more than a few minutes but details of them are not yet clear.