Design of a multi-electrode dielectric barrier discharge reactor and experimental study on the degradation of atrazine in water.

Atrazine (ATZ) is widely used in agriculture as a triazine herbicide, and its long-term use can cause serious environmental pollution. This paper independently designed a multi-electrode reactor, explored the output power and energy utilization efficiency of the dielectric barrier discharge reactor, and used the dielectric barrier discharge reactor to treat ATZ solution. The results showed that the degradation efficiency of ATZ was 96.39% at 30 min at an initial ATZ concentration of 14 mg/L, an input voltage of 34 kV, an input current of 1.38 mA, an aeration rate of 100 L/h, and a treatment water volume of 150 mL. The degradation of ATZ was significantly increased by the addition of persulfate (PS), Fe2+, and H2O2. After adding radical quenchers (EtOH, p-BQ, and FFA), the degradation efficiency of ATZ decreased, indicating that free radicals (•OH, •O2-, and 1O2) played a key role in the degradation process of ATZ.

Study on degradation of cooking fume by compound filter material and UV photodegradation.

Environmental contamination issues have steadily surfaced with the rapid development of the cooking industry. In this paper, the front end of the cooking fume exhaust was filtered by the filter material, and then, the ultraviolet photolysis technology was used for in-depth treatment. The filter material filtration performance of glass fiber, molecular sieve, and composite filter material was studied by the filter efficiency, filter resistance, and quality factor three filter performance indexes. The results show that the filter wind speed has a significant influence on the filter material fume filtration characteristics. The filtration efficiency of the pre-filter material changes the least with the increase of the wind speed when the wind speed is 18 m·s-1 and the filter material tilt Angle is 60°; meanwhile, the pressure drop of the two kinds of filter material is reduced, and the quality factor is improved. Under the optimal wind speed and angle, the composite filter material of glass fiber and molecular sieve combined with UV photolysis technology was used to study the treatment of formaldehyde and acrolein, which are two volatile organic pollutants with high content in cooking fume, and the mineralization mechanism of formaldehyde and acrolein under UV light was analyzed. The results showed that the removal rates of formaldehyde and acrolein could reach 99.84% and 99.75%, respectively.

Experimental study on the treatment of dye wastewater by plasma coupled biotechnology.

In this experiment, a gas-liquid two-phase discharge water treatment inverse device was designed independently to treat the actual workshop intermediate dye wastewater from a chemical plant. Firstly, the effects of initial concentration of wastewater, initial pH, circulation flow rate of solution, content of Fe2+, content of H2O2, and addition of tert-butanol on the organic removal rate and decolorization rate of dye wastewater treatment were investigated. The results showed that Fe2+ and tert-butanol would react with the active particles (H2O2, ·OH) and inhibit the degradation of the dye wastewater, resulting in the decrease of both organic matter degradation rate and decolorization rate. The experimentally degraded dye wastewater mainly contained benzoic acid and its derivatives in addition to dye molecules, thus the degradation mechanism of benzoic acid was mainly analyzed. Then, the actual dye wastewater treated by low-temperature plasma was combined with the traditional biological treatment technology. The biochemical properties of the wastewater treated by low-temperature plasma technology were greatly improved, and the B/C was increased from the initial 0.17 to 0.33. The effluent after the combined biological method could meet the effluent discharge standard, and the final CODcr reached 198 mg/L, BOD5 reached 65 mg/L, and pH and chromaticity reached 6.39 and 50, respectively.

Wire-tube DBD reactor for H2S treatment: optimization of geometric and electrical parameters.

Based on the wire-tube DBD reactor, this paper studied the effects of different discharge lengths, discharge air gaps, and electrical parameters on the discharge characteristics of the DBD discharge module. The results show that under the condition of increasing applied voltage, different discharge lengths, discharge air gaps, thicknesses of the insulating medium, and equivalent capacitance of insulating medium all show an increasing trend, while the equivalent capacitance of air-gap medium fluctuated within a certain range. When the discharge length was 30 cm, the discharge air gap was 2 mm, and the thickness of the insulating medium was 1 mm, the discharge effect was the best. In terms of electrical parameters, with the increase of the applied voltage, the "burr" of the current waveform increased, the load voltage and discharge power also increased, the discharge air gap voltage remained almost unchanged, and the equivalent capacitance value of the insulating medium continued to increase while the equivalent capacitance of the air gap medium remained almost unchanged. The optimized DBD discharge module was used for the treatment of exhaust gas containing H2S. The results show that when the gas flow rate was 80 L·h-1, the initial concentration was 50 mg·m-3, and the applied voltage was 65 V, the removal efficiency could reach 100% in 4 s. The energy efficiency analysis of the DBD discharge module shows that the energy efficiency of the discharge module varies by changing the different parameters; in the case of H2S degradation, the end products were mainly SO2 and SO3.

Effect of anion-exchange membrane type for FCDI performance at different concentrations.

Brackish water was an important alternative source of freshwater. Desalination using flow electrode capacitive deionization (FCDI) needs to explore the role of ion exchange membranes (IEM) of FCDI. In this study, brackish water was desalinated using FCDI, and anion exchange membranes with different characteristics were used in the FCDI cell to investigate their influence. The result showed that the membrane polymer matrix was the main influencing factor for ion transport. Ion exchange capacity (IEC) has a huge impact that low IEC made the various ion transport priority. Low IEC not only limits ion transport but also leads to ion leakage in seawater. Resistance had a significant blockage to the effect with weak intensity.

Electrochemical degradation of chloramphenicol using Ti-based SnO2-Sb-Ni electrode.

Antibiotic residues may be very harmful in aquatic environments, because of limited treatment efficiency of traditional treatment methods. An electrochemical system with a Ti-based SnO2-Sb-Ni anode was developed to degrade a typical antibiotic chloramphenicol (CAP) in water. The electrode was prepared using a sol-gel method. The performance of electrode materials, impact factors and dynamic characteristics were evaluated. The Ti-based SnO2-Sb-Ni electrode was compact and uniform as shown by characterization using SEM and XRD. The electrocatalytic oxidation of CAP was carried out in a single-chamber reactor by using a Ti-based SnO2-Sb-Ni electrode. For 100 mg L-1 CAP, the CAP removal ratio of 100% and the TOC removal ratio of 60% were obtained at the current density of 20 mA cm-2 and in a neutral electrolyte at 300 min. Kinetic investigation has shown that the electro-oxidation of CAP on a Ti-based SnO2-Sb-Ni electrode displayed a pseudo-first-order kinetic model. Free radical quenching experiments presented that the oxidation of CAP on Ti-based SnO2-Sb-Ni electrode resulted from the synergistic effect of direct oxidation and indirect oxidation (·OH and ·SO4-). Doping Ni on the Ti/SnO2-Sb electrode for CAP degradation was presented in this paper, showing its great application potential in the area of antibiotic and halogenated organic pollutant degradation.

Double dielectric barrier discharge cells for promoting the catalytic degradation of volatile organic compound released by industrial processes.

In this study, the recycling of gas flow was added to oxidize mixture (toluene and xylene) in the post-plasma catalysis (PPC) system, and the MnOx catalysts using impregnation method were used to further oxidize the VOC mixture. The circulation and catalysts were of enhancement for the plasma degradation on both toluene and xylene. The improvement of CO2 selectivity and the reduction of NO, NO2, and O3 were 64.4%, 92.0%, 62.2%, and 51.9%, respectively. The fresh and used catalysts were characterized for the ozone decomposition and mixture degradation in the NTP-REC-CATAL system with the 15 wt% loading amount of catalysts. The results showed that OH groups, lattice oxygen, and manganese sites were potential and significant for the catalytic ability for O3 and mixture conversion. Aldehyde was detected from FT-IR characterization after treating, which indicates that it is the main intermediate NTP-REC-CATAL process. The air plasma was employed to reactive catalytic activity.

Preparation of a novel Cu-Sn-Bi cathode and performance on nitrate electroreduction.

Cu-Sn-Bi layer coated on Ti substrate was prepared using electrodeposition method and applied as cathode material for electrochemical reduction of nitrate in this research. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), chronoamperometry (CA), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to scrutinize the electrochemical performance and the cathode materials. LSV results illustrated that Cu-Sn-Bi cathode possessed the ability for nitrate reduction. Preparation conditions including deposition time, current density, temperature and the content of Bi were optimized based on NO3 -N removal and byproducts selectivity. Results showed that the cathode with Bi content of 3.18 at.%, and electrodepositing at current density of 6 mA cm-2, 35 °C for 30 min achieved the best performance during the experiment. The increase of Bi content could improve the electrocatalytic activity and stability of the cathode. Compared with other common researched cathodes (Cu and Fe), Cu-Sn-Bi (3.18 at.%) exhibited better performance, i.e. the highest NO3 -N removal of 88.43% and the selectivity of harmless N2 was 77.80%. The kinetic studies showed that the reduction of nitrate on Cu-Sn-Bi followed pseudo-first-order kinetics.

Characteristics of back corona discharge in a honeycomb catalyst and its application for treatment of volatile organic compounds.

The main technical challenges for the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with plasma-assisted catalysis in industrial applications are large volume plasma generation under atmospheric pressure, byproduct control, and aerosol collection. To solve these problems, a back corona discharge (BCD) configuration has been designed to evenly generate nonthermal plasma in a honeycomb catalyst. Voltage-current curves, discharge images, and emission spectra have been used to characterize the plasma. Grade particle collection results and flow field visualization in the discharge zones show not only that the particles can be collected efficiently, but also that the pressure drop of the catalyst layer is relatively low. A three-stage plasma-assisted catalysis system, comprising a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) stage, BCD stage, and catalyst stage, was built to evaluate toluene treatment performance by BCD. The ozone analysis results indicate that BCD enhances the ozone decomposition by collecting aerosols and protecting the Ag-Mn-O catalyst downstream from aerosol contamination. The GC and FTIR results show that BCD contributes to toluene removal, especially when the specific energy input is low, and the total removal efficiency reaches almost 100%. Furthermore, this removal results in the emission of fewer byproducts.