Degradation of Industrial Phenolic Wastewater Using Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Technique

A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma setup was developed to decompose phenol present in industrial wastewater by the varying discharge voltage and to study its effect on the degradation. Filamentary type of micro-discharge was found to be formed which was observed as numerous streamer clusters in the current waveform. The ozone gas generated from the reactor, was utilized directly and the percentage of the total organic carbon removal was calculated. The concentration of ozone responsible for the degradation of phenol was found to increase with an increase in the applied voltage and the treatment time. In the present study, more than 98% degradation of phenol has been achieved with the application of a voltage of 24 kV, which has been found to be superior as compared to the available reports. The degradation of phenol can be estimated from the UV-VIS spectra of the sample after 30 min of plasma treatment. Experimental parameters like pH and discharge current have also been varied and the results are analyzed. This indicates that the decomposition efficiency and total organic carbon (TOC) removal increase with increasing the input power. Thus, the process is expected to be of utmost importance for its potential application in wastewater treatment using plasma as the energy source.