Carbon Tetrachloride Decomposition by Pulsed Spark Discharges in Oxidative and Nonoxidative Conditions

The estimation of pulsed-spark-discharge efficiency for destroying unwanted stable gaseous impurities is an object of the present study. A laboratory-scale reactor was developed to study the efficiency of pulsed spark discharges (PSDs) for CCl4 decomposition under oxidative and nonoxidative conditions at atmospheric pressure. In the discharge, chlorine gas was the main product produced from CCl4 in addition to minor amounts of additional products. These products were the following: 1) C2Cl4, C2Cl6, and solid deposits containing chlorine and carbon for the inlet CCl4 + Ar mixture and 2) CO2 with small amounts of COCl2 for CCl4 + O-2 mixture. For both diluting gases, it was possible to reach a high CCl4 conversion (98% for CCl4 + O-2 and 93% for CCl4 + Ar). CCl4 was chosen as a model substance, because of its simple chemical composition and high stability of its structure. For this reason, the positive result of experiments with CCl4 gave evidence that using the PSD may be an effective way for the abatement of gaseous pollutant emission.