Poster Presentation 19
Nanosecond Pulsed Plasma Discharge
Over a Flowing Water Film:
Plasma Characterization, Hydrodynamic Analysis, and
Hydrogen Peroxide Generation
Robert J. Wandell, Huihui Wang, Patrick Breslend, and Bruce R. Locke
Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Florida State University, 2525 Pottsdamer Street
Tallahassee, FL 32310 USA
Abstract
Low energy pulsed plasma discharges in a flowing carrier gas with liquid water have been shown capable of
producing hydrogen peroxide at reasonably high energy yields. The leading hypothesis for the success of this
production method is that the liquid water serves as both a source of water vapor from which hydroxyl
radicals can be produced during the on cycle of the pulsed discharge, as well as a sink for hydrogen peroxide
generated from these radicals during the off cycle of the pulse. Many reactor designs have been explored
with various gas-liquid contact schemes in order to enhance the overall efficiency of this process. A
continuously flowing, liquid film, reactor has been developed in our laboratory which we believe has a
number of significant benefits over the previously explored configurations. In previous studies with this
flowing film reactor, an automobile ignition coil was used to generate the pulsed plasma discharge. While
this ignition coil provided high energy yields for hydrogen peroxide production, analysis of the system was
difficult due to the large pulse widths required by the coil. Multiple arcing events were found to occur within
these microsecond pulses which were extremely difficult to control or accurately measure and quantify. For
this reason a nanosecond power supply is utilized in this study which is capable independently varying pulse
width, input voltage, and pulse repetition. With this controllable power supply the plasma properties such as
gas temperature and electron density can be measured for various input pulse characteristics to study the
resulting effect on hydrogen peroxide generatio