Study of positive and negative plasma catalytic oxidation of ethylene

ABSTRACT

The effect of introducing a photocatalytically active coating inside a plasma unit is investigated. This technique combines the advantages of high product selectivity from catalysis and the fast start-up from plasma technology. In this study, a preselected TiO₂ coating is applied on the collector electrode of a DC corona discharge unit as non-thermal plasma reactor, in order to study the oxidation of ethylene. For both positive and negative polarities an enhanced mineralization is observed while the formation of by-products drastically decreases. The plasma catalytic unit gave the best results when using negative polarity at a voltage of 15 kV. This shows the potential of plasma catalysis as indoor air purification technology.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Plasma catalysis
• non-thermal plasma
• corona discharge
• photocatalysis
• ozone

Acknowledgements

Hilde Vanderstappen and Tom Tytgat are greatly acknowledged for their help during the experiments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.