REMOVING SO2 AND NOX FROM FLUE GAS OF ABADAN REFINERY BY NONTHERMAL PLASMA

Air pollution is one of the major problems facing the world resulted from concentration of airborne pollutants. The major sources of air pollution are combustion processes of fossil fuels. Flue gases generated by combustion contain air pollutants such as SO2, NOx which are of great concern and they must be treatment before they can be released to the atmosphere. In this study the flue gas from distillation unit 75 of Abadan refinery was treated by corona discharge to remove SO2 and NOx. A glass reactor with an id of 20 mm consisting of one inlet pipe with an id of 5 mm and one exit pipe with an id of 5 mm including two electrodes with an id of 3 mm was used for this purpose. The electrodes were connected to an AC power supply with a high-voltage transformer to initiate the corona discharge. The inlet voltage (220 V) can be increased to a maximum of 7 kV by using the transformer. A facility of taking samples from inlet and outlet gases was included in the reactor. The effects of electrode distance (3, 5, and 5 mm) and discharge power (3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 kV) on NO, NO2, and SO2 removal were investigated. The results indicated that as the discharge power of the plasma increased the removal efficiency of three pollutants increased. The effect of electrode distance on removal efficiency of the pollutants indicated that between plasma powers of 3 to 5 kV the removal efficiency increased to a maximum and afterward the removal efficiency decreased as the plasma power increased further to 7 kV.