High-temperature simultaneous removal of acetaldehyde and ammonia gases using corona discharge

The electrostatic precipitator (ESP) is the most prevalent application for corona as ion source. ESP is widely used in industrial dust collection and home ventilation systems for cleaning gas streams. However, ESP has not been used to remove gas pollutants from a gas stream. Electron attachment is one of the promising techniques for gas purification. Electron attachment reactions occur when low-energy electrons generated in a corona-discharge reactor are captured by electronegative impurities such as acetaldehyde and fine particles to produce negative ions and charged particles. The negative ions and charged particles drift in the electric field to the anode (reactor wall) and are removed by deposition there. Moreover, O-, O radical, ozone, and OH- are also generated when the carrier gas is humid air. These anions and radicals also contribute to the removal efficiency. Though acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) and ammonia (NH3) are emitted at high temperature from a crematory furnace, there is insufficient report on the effect of high temperature and simultaneous removal. The present research experimentally investigates the technical feasibility of using corona discharge reactions to treat high-temperature exhaust gas containing acetaldehyde and ammonia. The simultaneous removal efficiency of these gases from nitrogen and air is obtained experimentally. The experimental results reveal that the presence of oxygen does significantly enhance the overall removal efficiency. Similarly, it is found that the presence of water vapor also enhances the removal efficiency of the target gases from the nitrogen-oxygen mixture. The generation of undesirable byproducts such as NOx is also investigated. The present technique should be applicable to the simultaneous removal of different nanoparticles at high efficiency. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.