Nonthermal plasma activates catalyst: from current understanding and future prospects

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 16-1 Onogawa, Tsukuba Ibaraki, 305-8569, Japan

^a e-mail: hyun-ha.kim@aist.go.jp

Received: 3 November 2010
Accepted: 14 January 2011
Published online: 21 July 2011

Abstract

Combination of two old-yet-new technologies (plasma and catalyst) is getting attentions for the advanced processes in 21 century. This paper reports the complementary combination of atmospheric pressure nonthermal plasma with catalyst for the air pollution control application. The most important feature of this complementary combination is that plasma enables catalyst to work even at room temperature. Up-to-date data on catalyst screening for the cycled system will be given in terms of enhancement factor and adsorption capacity. Visual observation using ICCD camera was applied to study how discharge plasma interacts with catalyst at atmospheric-pressure and ambient temperature.