Decomposition of Phenol in Water by Gas Phase Pulse Discharge Plasma

Abstract

This paper introduced a pulse discharge reactor with a novel electrode configuration for decomposition of phenol in water. A tungsten wire in the middle of the porous ceramic tube and a stainless steel mesh outside the ceramic tube attached to the inner wall of the reactor vessel were constructed as discharge electrode and ground electrode, respectively. The porous ceramic tube made gas phase and liquid phase separated. Oxygen, as the gas phase, was bubbled into phenol solution through the porous ceramic tube. The radicals, such as O 3 , O -, ·O, generated by pulse discharge in the oxygen atmosphere, dissolved in the solution through the pores of the tube and phenol can be degraded by these radicals. The effects of discharge energy, gas bubbling rate, solution conductivity and solution pH on the decomposition efficiency of phenol were investigated. The results showed that increased discharge energy could enhance the decomposition efficiency; the gas bubbling rate and solution conductivity had little effects on the decomposition efficiency of phenol, indicating that the new pulse discharge reactor had good feasibility for the wastewater treatment in a large range of conductivity; the discharge electrode located in oxygen atmosphere could prevent the erosion of the electrode, which was in favor of the industrialization of pulse discharge for treating organic contaminant.

Development and characterization of a wire-plate air bubbling plasma for wastewater treatment using nanosecond pulsed high voltage

“…It is apparent that the conductivities in the range of 1-1000 S/cm have no influence on the decoloration process, the decoloration efficiency and the energy efficiency, of the MB at the same average power consumed. These results are in qualitative agreement with those obtained in [13,30,44,57] using bubbling discharge based reactors, where the solution conductivity had no significant effect on both the degradation efficiency of the model pollutants used and the reactive species generated. This is because the plasma, at this selected value of the average power consumed, was mainly formed in the gas phase inside the dielectric tube and entered within bubbles into the aqueous solution.…”

Optimal Power Supply Frequency for Wastewater Treatment by Using Underwater Plasma Discharges

“…Many researchers have been researched the decomposition of organic materials in wastewater, and the treatment techniques were investigated. Such as arc discharge [1], microwave discharge [2], high repetition discharge plasma [3, surface plasma [4] and gas pulse discharge [5]. Up to now, the process for wastewater treatment is widely developed.…”