NOx treatment by atmospheric streamer corona discharges

Among many methods used for removal of NOx from flue gas, a positive DC streamer corona discharge method is presented in this paper. To generate a uniform streamer corona discharge with simplified DC power supplies, a series gap was connecting with the main discharge reactor. When the series gap operated, a voltage pulse whose dv/dt was from 0.7kV/ns to 2.72kV/ns (according to the gap space) was applied on the main reactor. The electrical and optical measurements showed that the series gap was useful for obtaining the uniform discharge. The energy consumption of series gap was about from 6% to 20% of the discharge input power for different series gap space of 0.3mm to 1.05mm. Until now the maximum NO removal rate of 67.7% was obtained at the main gap spacing of 30mm and series gap spacing of 0.9mm. Maximum removal efficiency of 3.52gNO/kWh was also obtained at the series gap spacing of 0.3mm.