Experimental Study on the Performance of an Air-Fed Indirect Non-Thermal Plasma System of DBD Type

The performance of an indirect Non-thermal plasma (INTP) system used to decompose harmful exhaust emission from diesel engine was experimentally studied, using a self-designed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) NTP reactor with coaxial cylinder structure. The impact of peak to peak value (V
_p-p
) and frequency of voltage-supplied, flow rate of air and the temperature of discharge zone on the concentration of active material such as O
₃
, NO
₂
and NO were investigated. The experiment results indicated: over-high V
_p-p
would decrease the concentration of O
₃
, NO
₂
which has strong oxidizing property; with the increasing of the frequency of voltage-supplied, the concentration of O
₃
and NO
₂
increased at first and then decreased; keeping the temperature of discharge zone from growing could lighten thermal decomposition of O
₃
and thus increase its concentration and that of NO
₂
; raising air flow rate will decrease the concentration of INTP products but increase their amount in unit time. These results are instructively significant for development of DBD type INTP system and optimization of its matching with other after-treatment devices.