OH radical generation by atmospheric pressure pulsed discharge plasma and its quantitative analysis by monitoring CO oxidation

OH radicals play a very important role in non-thermal plasma chemical reactions for decomposition of gaseous pollutants or synthesis of methanol from methane, etc. In this paper, the CO oxidation monitoring method, which has been used in atmospheric chemistry, was examined to measure the concentration of OH radicals produced by a pulsed discharge plasma. The concentration of OH radicals in the discharge plasma of H2O/Ar mixture gas was estimated by measuring the amount of CO2 produced through oxidation of CO by OH radicals. The experimental results and the calculated results showed that it is possible to measure OH radicals using this simple method. In this experimental work, the maximum concentration of OH radicals produced by the pulsed discharge plasma of H2O/Ar was measured to be 9.4×1014 molecules cm−3 pulse−1. Within the temperature range investigated in this study (50–150°C), the formation of OH radicals increased with increase in the specific input energy (discharge energy dissipated in unit volume of the gas; SIE) value and the content of H2O; in contrast, it decreased with increase in the gas temperature.