A Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) Plasma Reactor: An Efficient Tool to Measure the Sustainability of Non-Thermal Plasmas through the Electrical Breakdown of Gases

Abstract

Gas discharges in plasma atmosphere are known to consist of a collection of different particles, mainly electrons, ions, neutral atoms and molecules. In this piece of research work we aim for the complete decomposition of volatile organic pollutants in NTP system. So the formation of plasmas in DBD systems and its sustainability are the main goal. The present need is to characterize the plasmas and optimization of the designed and fabricated plasma system under variable conditions. One of most important issue is the electrical breakdown of gases and to find the point of electrical breakdown. The volatile organic pollutants taken are Benzene, toluene, xylene, chlorobenzene, dichlorobenzene, nitrobenzene, methylene chloride etc. Self-sustainability of DBD-plasmas is explained for different VOCs under different experimental conditions taking helium and argon as carrier gases in terms of Paschen's curves. It explains the breakdown voltage as a function of the electrode spacing or gas gap (d), operating pressure (p), and gas composition [1]. The breakdown voltage is a function of the product of the pressure (p) and the inter-electrode distance (pd) also. It is verified that as the nature of substituent group changes, it varies the breakdown voltage and glow discharge zone following Townsend breakdown curve and eventually depends upon electron density of the system.