Chlorobenzene Degradation in Simultaneous Gas–Liquid Phases Assisted by DBD Plasma

Chlorobenzene (CB) is a toxic compound and is broadly used as a raw material for phenol, solvents, and agrochemical products, among other substances. CB being a very lightly soluble compound in water (~0.450 mL/L) is highly volatile, and it can be found in both liquid and gas phases. In this paper, the treatment of CB was carried out in an aqueous solution assisted by nonthermal plasma (NTP) generated by a dielectric barrier discharge. NTP was utilized as a generator, producing active species for the treatment of CB in both liquid and gas phases, attaining high degradation efficiencies >95% and using a low electric power consumption <;20 W. Energy efficiencies of CB removal in kg/kWh were estimated, and relatively high values ~0.5 kg/kWh were obtained with a low-energy consumption. Attained degradation efficiencies were determined using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. Optical emission spectroscopy study was conducted to determine the gas temperature during experimentations. Thus, the estimated magnitude was lower than 110 °C in overall cases. Meanwhile, the resulting excitation temperature was near to 0.2 eV. This magnitude is in the range of typical temperatures for similar NTP devices.