Development of a Post-Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Reactor for the Treatment of Simulated Dye Wastewater

Abstract

The potential application of non-thermal plasma in treating textile industrial wastewater motivates researchers to develop innovative techniques at a laboratory scale to achieve the goal of wastewater mineralization. With this objective, a post-dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactor with a liquid electrode has been developed to study the degradation of synthetic dye solutions (simulated dye wastewater) at the laboratory scale. The in-house-developed post-DBD plasma reactor is used to assess its applicability for degrading Crystal Violet and other azo dyes in aqueous solution (model wastewater samples). We investigated the roles of solution and reactor parameters in achieving a higher degradation efficiency of Crystal Violet under the given discharge conditions. The reaction kinetics of Crystal Violet degradation were studied by analyzing UV-Vis spectra at different treatment times. The primary results suggest that the proposed post-DBD plasma reactor may offer a more promising solution than a simple DBD plasma reactor for degrading synthetic dyes and organic matter in industrial wastewater.