Keywords

chemical, petroleum, engineering, energy, nitrogen oxide, nitrogen, pulsed corona discharge reactor

Abstract

This work shows that the configuration of a pulsed corona discharge reactor strongly affects the rate of electron collision reactions. Experiments involving the decomposition of NO in N2 were performed in a reactor in which the number or parallel reactor tubes varied from 1 to 10 at a constant pressure of 147.6 kPa and ambient temperature. A previously developed lumped model of the reactions accurately predicted the effects of varying the initial concentrations of NO (from 240ppm to 593ppm) and gas residence time (from 1.93 to 742 s). With an increasing number of parallel reactor tubes, the rate of the electron collision reactions decreases because the energy input per unit reactor volume at unit time decreases, while the energy consumption per molecule of NO converted to N2 and O2 decreases due to electrical and geometric effects associated with the decreasing peak width of the discharge voltage pulses and increasing reactor capacitance. Therefore, increasing the number of parallel reactor tubes provides viable scale-up method for constructing more efficient pulsed corona discharge reactors.

Original Publication Citation

G.B. Zhao, S.V.B.J. Garikipati, X. Hu, M.D. Argyle, M. Radosz, "The Effect of Reactor Configuration on NO Conversion and Energy Consumption in Non-thermal Plasma Parallel Tube Reactors." AIChE Journal, 51, 18-1812, 25.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2005-06-01

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/2839

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Language

English

College

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

Department

Chemical Engineering

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