Dual sided Al/Al<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf> microchannel plasma ozone reactor

Abstract

Arrays of low temperature microchannel plasmas have been demonstrated to be an efficient generator of ozone in an atmospheric pressure environment. 1 An on-chip chemical reactor was fabricated from Al foil by a sequence of electrochemical processes and micropowder abrasion techniques. Having a thickness of ~ 1 mm, arrays of parallel microchannels can be stacked to yield increasing throughput. The Al/Al 2 O 3 structure chosen for the reactor renders it wellsuited for demanding operating conditions and for use with attaching and corrosive gases and vapors, in particular. For the experiments described here, a reactor comprising 24 linear channels having 250 µm in width was fabricated in Al foil 500 μm in thickness. Twelve channels were produced on each side of the foil and the channel length was 3.3 cm. With oxygen as the feedstock gas, ozone was generated with an efficiency above 100 g/kWh for O 3 concentrations of ~20 g/m 3 . These data were observed by driving the arrays with a 850 V ~ 1 kV (RMS), 20 kHz sinusoid and O 2 flow rate of 0.5 ~ 1.5 L/min.