Toluene oxidation by non-thermal plasma combined with palladium catalysts
Monica Magureanu1, Daniela Dobrin1, Nicolae B Mandache1
1Department for Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion, National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics Magurele, Bucharest, Romania.
Abstract:
The oxidation of toluene in air was investigated using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) combined with a Pd/Al2O3 catalyst. When using only plasma, rather low selectivity toward CO2 was obtained: 32-35%. By filling the DBD reactor with Pd/Al2O3 catalyst the CO2 selectivity was significantly enhanced (80-90%), however, a large amount of toluene was desorbed from the catalyst when the discharge was operated. By filling a quarter of the discharge gap with catalyst and placing the rest of the catalyst downstream of the plasma reactor, an important increase of CO2 selectivity (~75%) and a 15% increase in toluene conversion were achieved as compared to the results with plasma alone. The catalyst exhibited a very good stability in this reaction.
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