Destruction of toluene gas based on high frequency dielectric barrier discharge

Being emitted into the atmosphere, toluene as one of the important volatile organic compounds would impact the air quality and degrading our living environment As a result, emission of toluene has caused much public concern from the view point of protection of human health and environment. With a view to broader the industrial application improving of removal efficiency remains a primary work. Basing on the combination of corona plasma and dielectric barrier discharge in the high frequency power output, this paper discussed the influence on the toluene gas removal efficiency experimentally, which was affected by applied voltage, frequency, materials of reactor, as well as the diameter of electrode. Experimental results show that the removal rate will be increased by applying high voltage. The removal efficiency of toluene gas will reach as high as 96.25% when frequency is 6 kHz and the voltage is 15.4 kV. In addition, three kinds of materials which having different dielectric constants, ie. the common ceramics, 99% ceramics and acrylics were discussed. The experimental data show that material differences have little impact on the removal efficiency under low voltage condition. While under high voltage condition, the removal efficiency rate of the 99% ceramics is the highest, followed by the common ceramics, and the acrylics is the third. This paper also did research on the removal effect by applying different size of electrode diameters of 1.00 mm, 1.65 mm and 2.00 mm. The data show that the removal efficiency with thicker electrode is higher than the thinner one. However, the high voltage applied is a precondition.