The Effect of Temperature on the Plasma-Catalytic Destruction of Propane and Propene: A Comparison with Thermal Catalysis

A comparison has been made of plasma-catalysis with thermal-catalysis and plasma alone for the removal of low concentrations of propane and propene from synthetic air using a one-stage, catalyst-in discharge configuration. In all cases, plasma-catalysis produces better hydrocarbon destructions (~40%) than thermal catalysis at low temperatures. At higher temperatures, little difference is observed between plasma-catalytic and thermal-catalytic operation. Plasma operation by itself had a similar effectiveness to plasma-catalysis at low temperatures but was significantly lower (up to 50%) as the temperature was raised. By examining the form of the temperature dependence for the plasma-catalytic destruction processes, it is possible to phenomenologically distinguish two contributions to the destruction; one that is specifically plasma-induced and another (at higher temperatures) in which both plasma and thermal activation have similar mechanisms.