Effect of MnO2 Catalyst on Nonthermal Plasma Reactor Combined with Ceramic Filter for Trichloroethylene Decomposition

This paper attempts to improve the energy efficiency and to reduce by-products generation of the authors’ nonthermal plasma reactor for VOC treatment by combining with MnO₂ catalyst. In the experiments, trichloroethylene is used as a model VOC and two location of setting the MnO₂ catalyst as “inside the reactor” and “downstream of the reactor” was tried. The results demonstrated that energy efficiency to decompose TCE was improved by combining with the MnO₂ catalyst for both location conditions of “inside” and “downstream” of the reactor. As to by-product reduction, although without catalyst case, small amount of phosgene, dichloroacetylchloride (DCAC), pentachloroethane (PCE), tetrachloroethane (TCE) generation was observed, tetrachloroethane generation was under the detection limit and other by-products generation was also reduced with the MnO₂ catalyst for “downstream” case. Moreover, when the catalyst was placed “inside” the reactor, phosgene and DCAC was also under the detection limit. These results indicated the significant effect of MnO₂ catalyst to our nonthermal reactor for VOC treatment.