High-Efficiency Atmospheric Pressure Glowing Discharge using Stacked Wire Dielectric Barrier Discharge Reactor

Plasma-assisted processes enable an electrified and potentially sustainable chemical synthesis or surface modification technology. However, the design of current plasma processes is often a compromise between performance factors such as reliability, scalability, energy efficiency, and chemical conversion. For example, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactors generate stable discharges with high conversion, but the energy efficiency is often limited by its filamentary discharge at atmospheric pressure which only allows limited contact between the reaction gas and the plasma filament. Other types of plasma reactors, such as microwaves, can achieve high energy efficiency with glowing discharge yet a reduced pressure is required. In this work, we report an innovative Stacked Wire Dielectric Barrier Discharge (SWDBD) reactor design that can generate glowing discharge at atmospheric pressure to significantly improve the energy efficiency of the DBD plasma reactor. The SWDBD reactor suppresses the formation of the filamentary discharge through a unique reactor structure and achieves a diffusive glowing discharge volumetrically. Compared with the conventional co-axle DBD reactor, the SWDBD reactor is demonstrated to increase the energy efficiency by ~100% for dry methane reforming with the same reactor volume and plasma power. Such SWDBD can also be easily scaled-up with adjustable discharge gap distances to facilitate applications such as large surface treatment, chemical reforming, air disinfection, etc.