Corona-induced non-thermal plasma for gas cleaning

The next generation gas cleaning system - called multiple pollutants emission control system - to remove polluting gases, heavy metals, and particles simultaneously, can be applied based on ions and radicals generated by corona plasmas. Potential applications are flue gas cleaning, odor control, inactivation of microorganisms, wastewater cleaning, synthesis gas cleaning, methane reforming, hydrogen production from fossil fuels, material surface treatment, and nano-particle generation. There are two critical issues to be overcome for large-scale industrial applications, i.e, namely the capacity and the cost of repetitive pulsed power techniques, and the total energy consumption. A discussion covers the characteristics of corona plasmas; multiple pollutants emission control; and cost evaluation of industrial plasma processing; and potential applications in odor emission control, exhaust gas cleaning, and VOC emission control. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 98th AWMA Annual Conference and Exhibition (Minneapolis, MN 6/21-24/2005).