Decomposition of gaseous toluene using a continuous flow discharge plasma reactor with new configurations

The destruction of gaseous toluene was carried out in a tubular multilayer dielectric barrier discharge reactor which can yield a steady state of low-temperature plasma with an array structure. The research was investigated under different relative humidities, input voltages, energy densities, energy consumption and the reactor processing capacities. The results showed that the highest removal efficiency and processing capacity (γ) were acquired using an additional dielectric with the width of 2 mm between adjacent discharge quartz tubes, and the removal efficiency of toluene reached 86.5% and γ increased to 6272 kg/s m³ at a voltage of 6 kV. The gas-phase by-products (O3, NOx, COx and intermediate organics) were also presented and the reaction mechanism was described according to the decomposition reaction tunnels.