Toluene Oxidation by Non-Thermal Plasma Combined with Palladium Catalysts

• Main Authors: Monica eMagureanu, Daniela eDobrin, Nicolae Bogdan Mandache, Bogdan eCojocaru, Vasile I Parvulescu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-06-01
• Series: Frontiers in Chemistry
• Subjects: Volatile Organic Compounds; Non-thermal plasma; Pd/Al2O3 catalyst; total oxidation of toluene; CO2 selectivity
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fchem.2013.00007/full

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 towards 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.