Influence of power supply on the generation of ozone and degradation of phenol in a surface discharge reactor

A surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) reactor was utilized to degrade phenol in water. Different power supplies applied to the DBD reactor affect the discharge modes, the formation of chemically active species and thus the removal efficiency of pollutants. It is thus important to select an optimized power supply for the DBD reactor. In this paper, the influence of the types of power supplies including alternate current (AC) and bipolar pulsed power supply on the ozone generation in a surface discharge reactor was measured. It was found that compared with bipolar pulsed power supply, higher energy efficiency of O-3 generation was obtained when DBD reactor was supplied with 50Hz AC power supply. The highest O-3 generation was approximate 4 mg kJ(-1); moreover, COD removal efficiency of phenol wastewater reached 52.3% after 3 h treatment under an AC peak voltage of 2.6 kV.