Ozone generation enhanced by silica catalyst in packed-bed DBD reactor

In this paper, three dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) configurations, which were plain DBD with no packing, DBD with packed pure quartz fibers and DBD with packed loaded quartz fibers, were employed to investigate the effect and catalytic mechanism of catalyst materials in a packed-bed ozone generator. From the experimental results, it was clear that the DBD configuration with packed pure fibers and packed loaded fibers promotes ozone generation. For the packed-bed reactor, ozone concentration and ozone yield were enhanced by an increase of electric field in the discharge gap with the packed-bed effect. Meanwhile, the enhancement of ozone concentration and yield for the DBD reactor packed by loaded fibers with silica nanoparticles was due to the catalysis of silica nanoparticles on the fiber surface. The adsorption of silica nanoparticles on the fiber surface can prolong the retention time of active species and enhance surface reactions.