Enhanced performance of non-thermal plasma coupled with TiO2/GAC for decomposition of chlorinated organic compounds: influence of a hydrogen-rich substance

Background: no study was found in the literature on the combination of tio2/gac catalyst and non-thermalplasma for chlorinated volatile organic compounds abatement in air. this paper presents this hybrid process for thedecomposition of chloroform (as a target compound) using a multi-pin to plate discharge reactor. the experimentswere performed using a high frequency pulsed transformer as the power supply system to examine the effect ofsie, frequency, as well as initial concentration on the chloroform removal efficiency (re). toluene was added as ahydrogen-rich source to shift the reactions into the formation of environmentally desirable products.results: re of around 60% was observed with the ntp-alone process at the highest possible sie (3000 j l?1), whileit rocketed up to 100% (total oxidation) in the presence of tio2/gac at sie of 1000 j l?1. about 100% o3 destructionover tio2/gac and both adsorption and catalytic activities of gac may be considered as the reasons for betterperformance of the hybrid process. toluene feeding diminished the chlorinated by-products such as cl2 and tcesignificantly. the selectivity towards co2 was noticed to enhance noticeably, when both catalyst and toluene wereintroduced, regardless of the input concentration.conclusions: our findings suggest that the hybrid of ntp with tio2/gac will highly be effective in the abatementof chloroform, and the addition of toluene will successfully decline harmful chlorinated by-products.