Frontiers in Chemistry (Jun 2013)

Toluene Oxidation by Non-Thermal Plasma Combined with Palladium Catalysts

  • Monica eMagureanu,
  • Daniela eDobrin,
  • Nicolae Bogdan Mandache,
  • Bogdan eCojocaru,
  • Vasile I Parvulescu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2013.00007
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 1

Abstract

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The oxidation of toluene in air was investigated using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) combined with a Pd/Al2O3 catalyst. When using only plasma, rather low selectivity towards CO2 was obtained: 32-35%. By filling the DBD reactor with Pd/Al2O3 catalyst the CO2 selectivity was significantly enhanced (80-90%), however, a large amount of toluene was desorbed from the catalyst when the discharge was operated. By filling a quarter of the discharge gap with catalyst and placing the rest of the catalyst downstream of the plasma reactor, an important increase of CO2 selectivity (~75%) and a 15% increase in toluene conversion were achieved as compared to the results with plasma alone. The catalyst exhibited a very good stability in this reaction.

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