Influence of balance gas mixture on decomposition of dimethyl sulfide in a wire-cylinder pulse corona reactor

The influence of balance gas mixture on decomposition of dimethyl sulfide was investigated experimentally by a wire-cylinder pulse corona reactor at room temperature. A new type of high voltage pulse generator with a thyratron switch and a Blumlein pulse-forming network was used in the experiments. The experiments were conducted at a fixed pulse frequency of 100 pps. The DMS decomposition efficiency as well as energy yield was investigated using varying oxygen concentration (0.6-21.0%), humidity (0-1.0%) and different balance gas (air, N₂, Ar). Breakdown voltage of DMS in Ar is lower than that of DMS in N₂, both of which are proportional to the gas pressures. The conversion of DMS in Ar is more efficient than that in N₂ and air at a fixed peak voltage. In addition, it is found that 5% oxygen is the optimum concentration in decomposition of DMS, due to higher conversion of DMS and relatively fewer yields of by products, such as O₃, NO_x and SO₂. The highest DMS removal efficiency where the energy yield was 1.24 mg kJ^-1 was achieved with the gas stream containing 0.3% H₂O in air.