No-thermal plasma processing of VOCs and NO{sub x} at LLNL

For the past few years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been conducting a comprehensive research program on the application of non-thermal plasmas for air pollution control and abatement. This program combines an extensive modeling effort with an experimental facility and test program. We believe that there are two major issues to be addressed in order to apply non-thermal plasma processing to air pollution control; these are electrical energy consumption and byproduct identification. The thrust of our work has been to understand the scalability of the non-thermal process by focusing on the energy efficiency of the non-thermal process and to identify the byproducts to ensure that effluent gases from a non-thermal processor are benign. We have compared different types of electrical discharge reactors both theoretically and experimentally. Our interests in the application of non-thermal plasmas vary from the destruction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to NO{sub x} reduction for mobile applications. This paper will discuss the processing of both NO{sub x} and VOCs by non-thermal plasmas at LLNL