Development of glow discharge plasma-catalytic reactors operated under atmospheric condition

Summary form only given. Two kinds of glow discharge plasma-catalytic reactors, the zone discharge tube plasma reactor and the rotating electrode ring plasma reactor, have been developed and evaluated in various chemical reactions under atmospheric conditions. In the former, a glow discharge occurs between two electrodes through a dielectric materials (Pyrex or quartz tube) and in the latter, between a rotating (rotor) and a fixed electrode (stator) to make large volumes of the plasma zone under atmospheric pressure. Each electrode is, furthermore, coated with catalytically active metals, such as Pt, Pd, Rh, Cu or Ni. Various kinds of decomposition reactions of chemically stable compounds have been examined in order to evaluate the performance of these reactors, such as decompositions of CO/sub 2/, H/sub 2/O, NO, CH/sub 4/ and Freon into simple molecules. Different characteristic capabilities were observed between these reactors. The conversions of various reactants depend on the input power (voltage, current and frequency), the catalytic metal employed, carrier gas with different metastable level and the flow rate of reactant. In most of the reactions investigated, generally speaking, both of reactors showed excellent results in comparison with conventional catalytic reactors.