Effects of pulse risetime and pulse width on the destruction of toluene and NO/sub x/ in a coaxial pulsed corona reactor

The efficient abatement of hazardous air pollutants has become a major concern for many private and military installations. The semiconductor processing industry is being scrutinized for emission of many perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A major concern in the military is the effluent from paint-spray applications. Most of the air emission from the military installations are VOCs from the paint-spray booths and associated drying booths. Also, there is interest in the destruction of oxides of nitrogen (NO/sub x/) from both stationary and mobile diesel engines. The pulsed corona reactor (PCR) is a nonthermal plasma discharge device which has been used to efficiently convert a variety of hazardous air pollutants into byproducts that can be filtered by standard technology. In this work, the authors show the effects of pulse parameters (pulsewidth and risetime) on the destruction of toluene and NO/sub x/ using a PCR.