Treatment of Hazardous Organic Wastes Using Silent Discharge Plasmas

Non-equilibrium plasmas have been applied to the chemical processing of gaseous media for over a century. Two major applications are chemical synthesis, exemplified by ozone generation (von Siemens 1857) and the removal of undesirable compounds from flue gases, exemplified by the electrostatic precipitator developed by Lodge (Oglesby & Nichols 1978). During the past two decades, interest in applying non-equilibrium plasmas to the removal of hazardous chemicals from gaseous media has been growing, in particular from heightened concerns over the pollution of our environment and a growing body of environmental regulations. These more-recent applications have involved efforts to destroy toxic chemical agents (Clothiaux et al 1984; Mukkavilli et al 1988, Tevault 1992), to remove harmful greenhouse gases, such as sulfurous and nitrous oxides — SOx and NOx (Masuda 1988; Sardja & Dhali 1989; Dinelli et al 1990; Masuda & Nakao 1990; Chang, M.B. et al 1991; Higashi et al 1992), and to treat other environmentally-hazardous hydrocarbon and halocarbon compounds (Neely 1985; Fraser & Sheinson 1986, Yamamoto et al 1990; McCulla et al 1991; Rosocha & McCulla 1991; Rosocha et al 1992; Storch & Kushner 1992).