Recent Development of Electrostatic Technologies in Environmental Remediation

Abstract

Electrostatic technologies have been applied for environmental remediation. Electrostatic precipitation is an old technology yet still many possible applications for improve our environment. Non-thermal plasma has been evolved from ESPs to treat gaseous pollutants in atmospheric air. NTP produces highly reactive radicals (O, OH, etc.) that promote chemical reactions to remove gaseous pollutants. NTPs have been applied for removal of odor/allergen, volatile organic compounds(VOCs), etc. These applications require high energy efficiency in addition to low cost and reduced size. To improve the energy efficiency, combination of non-thermal plasma and catalysts has been investigated, and has been applied in several commercialized products for indoor air cleaning and VOC decomposition. DeNOx and deSOx can also be made. Recently significant improvement of NTP processes has been made, especially combining with catalysts. NTP can also be applied to liquid. For example, nitric acid can be reduced to ammonia. Wet-type NTP reactors are effective to clean exhaust gas, as well as cleaning of contaminated water.