In situ electron-induced reduction of NO_x via CNTs activated by DBD at low temperature

Highlights

• An in situ electron-induced deNO_x process with CNT activated by DBD was achieved.

• Carbon atoms on CNT surface were verified to be excited by plasma in DBD-CNT system.

• Reactions between NO_x and excited C result in synergistic effect of DBD-CNT system.

Abstract

In this study, a new in situ electron-induced process is presented with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a reduction agent activated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) for nitrogen oxide (NO_x) abatement at low temperature (<407 K). Compared with a single DBD system and a DBD system with activated carbon (DBD-AC), a DBD system with carbon nanotubes (DBD-CNT) showed a significant promotion of NO_x removal efficiency and N₂ selectivity. Although the O₂ content was 10%, the NO_x conversion and N₂ selectivity in the DBD-CNT system still reached 64.9% and 81.9% at a specific input energy (SIE) of 1424 J/L, and these values decreased to 16.8%, 31.9% and 43.2%, 62.3% in the single DBD system and the DBD-AC system, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were utilized to investigate surface changes in the CNTs after activation by DBD to explore the NO_x reduction abatement mechanism of this new process. Furthermore, the outlet gas components were also observed via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to help reveal the NO_x reduction mechanism. Experimental results verified that carbon atoms excited by DBD and the structure of CNTs contributed to the synergistic activity of the DBD-CNT system. The new deNO_x process was accomplished through in situ heterogenetic reduction reactions between the NO_x and carbon atoms activated by the plasma on the CNTs. In addition, further results indicated that the new deNO_x process exhibited acceptable SO₂ tolerance and water resistance.

Graphical abstract

References

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Acknowledgements

The financial support for this research was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21577023), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFC0212900), the Special Research Project on Causes and Control Technology of Air Pollution (No. 2017YFC0212905), and the Science and Technology Innovation Action Project supported by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (No. 18DZ1202605). The authors thank Jianyuan Hou and Yanghaichao Liu for their help in the research work.

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