Pulsed Discharge Plasma for VOCs Degradation

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from various gaseous industrial effluents have become a great issue because they are not only causing odor nuisance but also severely threatening the health of human beings. Non-thermal plasma (NTP) technique has become a research hotspot for the degradation of VOCs from air streams in recent years because it can generate abundant energetic electrons and active species at low temperature. Nanosecond or sub-microsecond pulsed discharge plasma is characterized by fast voltage rising time and short-pulse duration than AC or DC discharge, which is conducive to generating more chemically active species and has emerged as a promising approach for VOCs degradation. In this chapter, the recent progress of several novel pulsed discharge plasma and plasma-catalysis approaches for VOCs degradation developed by Nan Jiang et al. from Dalian University of Technology has been reviewed. The possible VOCs pathways in plasma and the catalytic surface reaction processes were discussed to provide a deeper understanding of the plasma-catalytic degradation mechanism.