Chemical reactions in pulsed plasma with organic liquid spray

• Main Authors: Wandell, Robert, Hsieh, Kevin, Locke, Bruce R., Bresch, Stefan, Alabugin, Igor
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemicals; Educational institutions; Hydrogen; Liquids; Organic compounds; Plasmas; Water resources
• ISSN: 0730-9244; 2576-7208
• DOI: 10.1109/PLASMA.2013.6634891

Summary form only given. Electrical discharges in gas-liquid environments and in liquids (including water and a range of organic compounds) have been studied for applications in electrical transmission, chemical destruction in pollution control, chemical synthesis, polymerization and polymer surface treatment, biological inactivation and biomedical treatments, and materials and nano-particle synthesis, and combustion. It has been found that for the purposes of chemical synthesis plasma generated by moderate frequency low energy pulses in a flowing carrier gas with the addition of a spray of fine aerosol particles or a thin film of liquid leads to the highest energy yield for the production of hydrogen peroxide from pure water. Previous work supports the hypothesis that, in the case of hydrogen peroxide generation by plasma with water droplets, the water droplets function to collect the gas phase generated hydrogen peroxide as well as to provide a large source of water molecules to the plasma. At low plasma power the water droplets are not fully vaporized, and due to the high solubility of hydrogen peroxide in water, the hydrogen peroxide formed in the gas phase is captured by the liquid water droplets where the plasma generated radicals do not cause significant degradation. In addition, large temporal and spatial gradients in the plasma reactor lead to more efficient utilization of the plasma to synthesize hydrogen peroxide. Using inspiration and techniques developed in the previous work with water, the main objective of the present work is to develop and explore the synthesis of organic compounds from organic liquid droplets injected into the plasma. The focus is on hydrocarbons that are liquids at room temperature (e.g., hexane). Plasma processes with liquid organic droplets and thin liquid films may provide the means to introduce reactive species (e.g., OH and H radicals) into organic compounds through spatial and temporal control of the plasma.