Diesel engine exhaust cleanup with a pulsed streamer corona reactor equipped with reticulated vitreous carbon electrodes

Reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) has been shown to be useful for high voltage and ground electrodes in gas phase pulsed streamer corona reactors. RVC disks with large macroscopic porosity are placed perpendicular to the gas flow and the main axis of a cylindrical corona reactor. This electrode geometry produces streamers that propagate in the direction of the gas flow and are uniformly distributed in the cross-section of the reactor. This highly electrically conductive material has large macroscopic porosity, thus allowing for gas flow through the electrodes with low pressure drop. Previous work has considered the effects of RVC electrodes on NO/NO_x removal from various test gases containing air, water vapor, and ethylene. The present studies deal with NO/NO_x removal from the exhaust of a diesel engine. Furthermore, experiments with the combination of TiO ₂ catalyst particles placed in the region between the high voltage and ground electrode disks were conducted