Characterisation of hydrogen peroxide production in a cold atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge

Abstract

Dielectric Barrier Discharges are used to investigate the production of hydrogen peroxide.Dielectric barriers limit the maximum current, causing microdischarges with the duration of nanoseconds. Water vapor in the gas flow of the plasma is responsible for complex chemistry, leading to the formation of OH radicals and subsequently hydrogen peroxide. Great care is taken to determine the produced amount of hydrogen peroxide. Heating is applied to avoid condensation of water vapour in tubing and hysteresis in the measurements is prevented. The key parameter for the comparison of different discharge geometries is the energy efficiency of the process. Therefore, a correct measurement of the power dissipation in the discharge is of high importance. Power measurements generally include system losses as well, which reacts on the energy efficiency. System losses are corrected by applying a phase shift to the voltage signal, leading to the power which actually dissipated in the discharge. The production of hydrogen peroxide is studied as a function of the discharge gap size, the gas residence time and the used gas admixture. The energy efficiency turns out to be inversely proportional to the residence time. Minimising the residence time to a few milliseconds results in a energy efficiency up to (1.4 ± 0.4 g/kWh).

Date of Award	30 Nov 2013
Original language	English
Supervisor	C.A. Vasko (Supervisor 1) & Eddie M. van Veldhuizen (Supervisor 2)