Destruction of n-butanol by an Atmospheric-pressure Plasma Jet over Air and Ar Working Gases with a Pt/Al2O3Catalyst

Plasma decompositions of n-butanol (n-b) in air over working gases of air (n-b/air with 21 vol.% O2) and Ar (nb/ air/Ar with 5 vol.% O2) were studied using an atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ) reactor with and without Pt/Al2O3catalyst. The utilization of catalytic APPJ (CAPPJ) shows excellent performance in terms of the conversion of n-butanol in n-b/air of 94.7% and n-b/air/Ar of 99.5% at plasma energy density = 3.75 kJ L-1and space velocity = 17,400 h-1. By comparing the working gases of air and Ar, the results indicate that n-b/air/Ar system exhibits slightly better performance than n-b/air system in APPJ and CAPPJ, suggesting that energetic primary electrons from Ar discharge would sufficiently retain the plasma reactive species for facilitating the decomposition of n-butanol. The proposed kinetic models show good agreement with the experimental data of APPJ and CAPPJ. The information obtained is useful for the operation, design and analysis of plasma system.