Jo JO  Lee SB  Jang DL  Park JH  Mok YS

Vol. 20,  No. 4, pp. 375-382, Dec.  2014

Isopropyl alcohol Acetone Plasma-catalyst Iron oxide Copper oxide

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This work investigated the plasma-catalytic decomposition of isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and the behavior of the byproduct compounds over monolith-supported metal oxide catalysts. Iron oxide (Fe2O3) or copper oxide (CuO) was loaded on a monolithic porous α-Al2O3 support, which was placed inside the coaxial electrodes of plasma reactor. The IPA decomposition efficiency itself hardly depended on the presence and type of metal oxides because the rate of plasma-induced decomposition was so fast, but the behavior of byproduct formation was largely affected by them. The concentrations of the unwanted byproducts, including acetone, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, methane, carbon monoxide, etc., were in order of Fe2O3/α-Al2O3 < CuO/α-Al2O3 < α-Al2O3 from low to high. Under the condition (flow rate: 1 L min-1; IPA concentration: 5,000 ppm; O2 content: 10%; discharge power: 47 W), the selectivity towards CO2 was about 40, 80 and 95% for α-Al2O3, CuO/α-Al2O3 and Fe2O3/α-Al2O3, respectively, indicating that Fe2O3/α-Al2O3 is the most effective for plasma-catalytic oxidation of IPA. Unlike plasma-alone processes in which tar-like products formed from volatile organic compounds are deposited, the present plasma-catalyst hybrid system did not exhibit such a phenomenon, thus retaining the original catalytic activity.