Chemical Engineering Journal 229 (2013) 344350

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Chemical Engineering Journal

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Electron beam treatment of gas stream containing high concentration

of NOx: An in situ FTIR study
P. Lakshmipathiraj a,b, Jingqiu Chen a, M. Doi c, N. Takasu c, S. Kato a, A. Yamasaki a,, T. Kojima a,
a

Department of Materials and Life Sciences, SeiKei University, Kichijoji, Musashino, Tokyo 180-8633, Japan
Photocatalysis International Research Center, Tokyo University of Science, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda, Chiba 278-8510, Japan
c
JFE Engineering Corporation, Research Centre, 2-1 Suehiro, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230-8611, Japan
b

h i g h l i g h t s
 The NO reduction is predominant in the absence of O2 under EB processing.
 The O2 presence in the gas stream increases the NO2 formation during EB operation.
 The moisture content in the stimulated gas found to inhibit the NO2 formation.
 The Na2SO3 scrubbing of the gas during EB operation increases the NOx removal.
 The NO and NOx concentration is reduced to the extent of 95% using reactor type II.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 January 2013
Received in revised form 7 June 2013
Accepted 10 June 2013
Available online 19 June 2013
Keywords:
Electron beam
NO
NOx
Reduction
Pollution control

a b s t r a c t
The NOx removal from gas stream by electron beam (EB) technique under ow through condition was
investigated using two different reactors. Initially reactor type I was fabricated to investigate the NOx
removal performance, based on its performance, the reactor type II was designed for further investigation
on NOx removal efciency. The inuence of the applied current, O2, water vapour and gas ow rate on the
removal of NO and NOx was studied. The FTIR spectrum of the NO gas samples acquired after EB irradiation indicated the formation of NO2 and N2O. It was observed that the NOx concentration could be
reduced to 95% from the initial NO concentration of 1000 ppm using reactor type II. The possible removal
mechanism of NOx under EB irradiation is discussed. It is inferred that the EB irradiation accelerate the
reduction of NO to N2 and O2 in the absence of O2. Addition of O2 and water vapour in the NO/N2 gas
stream was found to inuence the oxidation and reduction reaction, respectively under EB irradiation.
The Na2SO3 scrubbing of the gas increased the NOx removal performance during EB processing. The
N2O was observed to form mainly by the reduction of NO2 during EB irradiation.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nitrogen oxides (NOx), are considered as one of the primary pollutants in the atmosphere. Their emissions into atmosphere not
only cause the formation of acid rain and ozone depletion, but also
adverse effect to human health [1]. The term NOx used to denote
both nitrogen monoxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). In the
recent decades, abatement of NOx from the combustion processes
has become one of national priorities and greatest challenges in
environmental protection. Though the efforts have been made to
control the NOx emission from the combustion process, post com-

Corresponding authors. Tel.: +81 422 37 3750; fax: +81 422 37 3871 (T. Kojima),
tel./fax: +81 422 37 3887 (A. Yamasaki).
E-mail addresses: akihiro@st.seikei.ac.jp (A. Yamasaki), kojima@st.seikei.ac.jp,
kojimaseikei@gmail.com (T. Kojima).
1385-8947/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2013.06.019

bustion NOx control techniques are mandatory to meet the stringent emission standards.
The most widely studied NOx control technique is selective catalytic reduction (SCR) with ammonia in the presence of oxygen, in
which the NOx could be reduced to 85% [25]. The SCR reaction is
promoted by the catalyst which enables the reaction to proceed at
low temperature. Nevertheless, the catalyst life time, catalyst poisoning and corrosion are common problems encountered in the
SCR technique [2]. The other conventional NOx control method is
selective noncatalytic reduction (SNCR) performed with ammonia
or cyanuric acid [5,6,2]. The high temperature window (982
1149 C) is necessary to operate the SNCR process, which limits
its application for the treatment of the diesel engine exhaust at
atmospheric pressure conditions. Similarly, the methods include
catalytic decomposition [7], adsorption [8,9], ion-exchanged zeolites [10,11], etc., have suffered with their limitations and
disadvantages.

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In the recent decades, nonthermal plasma methods such as

pulsed corona discharge [1216], microwave discharge [13,17],
dielectric barrier discharge [13,15,16,1820], and electron beam
(EB) irradiation [21,22], shown to be efcient compared to conventional treatment techniques employed in the reduction of NOx and
undesired species from gas stream at atmospheric pressure conditions. The nonthermal plasma or the nonequilibrium plasma is
generated by the reaction of high energy electrons produced during EB or discharge processing with background gas molecules at
ambient temperature. The plasma consists of the active components viz., free radicals, ions and secondary electrons which are
playing vital role in the abatement of the gaseous pollutant. The
advantage of the nonthermal plasma method is that the kinetic energy of the electrons mainly utilized for vibrational excitation or
dissociation of the gas molecule rather heating up the gas molecule
[21].
It is shown that the EB processing is remarkably high energy
efcient than the electrical discharge processing. The specic energy consumption for the dissociation of N2 molecule in the pulsed
corona processing is 480 eV while, it is only 80 eV in the EB processing [23]. It is reported that the EB accelerator could reduce
the NOx to the extent of 82% from exhaust gas by combustion of
high sulphur fuel oil, containing the NOx concentration of 150
170 ppmv [22]. In another study, it is shown that pulsed EB treatment on exhaust gas from the combustion of polish light oil could
achieve 30% reduction of NOx from its initial concentration of
532 ppm [24]. The laboratory and the pilot scale test of EB ue
gas treatment demonstrated that the process can be prominently
applied for the simultaneous removal of three pollutant such as
NOx, SOx and volatile organic compounds (VOC) [25].
The present research work is aimed to develop the efcient EB
technique for the abatement of NOx, emitted from the diesel engine
in ships. Two different reactors named reactor type I and reactor
type II was investigated for the removal of the NOx at the laboratory scale. Initially reactor type I was fabricated to investigate
the NOx removal performance, based on its performance, the reactor type II was designed for further investigation on NOx removal
efciency. The behaviour of the NO gas in the presence of O2 and
water vapour was studied at different experimental conditions under EB irradiation. The NO and NOx removal efciency and its possible mechanisms were discussed.

345

controller was purged through the airtight glass container half

lled with Milli-Q water placed in a thermoregulated water bath.
Thus, the resultant outlet O2 gas carried the water vapour was
facilitated to mix with the NO gas stream as depicted in Fig. 1.
The generation of the water vapour could be controlled to desire
amount by adjusting the temperature of the thermoregulated
water bath. All the EB experiments were conducted at ambient
room temperature of 25 C. The stimulated gas after EB irradiation
was routed to ow into the moisture trap kept at 2 1 C to remove all its moisture prior to the FTIR analysis.
Initially, the reactor type I was designed to examine the NOx removal performance. The volume of the process vessel for the EB
treatment was 2.3 cm3. The electron beam was directed to apply
perpendicular to the gas ow in the process vessel through Ti window cathode. The gas ow conguration of the reactor type I is given in Fig. 1. Based on the NOx removal performance of reactor
type I, the reactor type II was designed and fabricated. The reactor
type II (Fig. 1) was accomplished in such a way that to circulate the
Na2SO3 reductant solution into the process vessel of the gas ow
duct to scrub the reactant gas during EB processing. The reductant
solution was circulated through the silicon tube with constant ow
rate using the peristaltic pressure pump from the external Na2SO3
reservoir tank. The volume of the process vessel was 3.2 cm3.
2.2. Analysis
The concentration of NO and other by-products in the gas
stream obtained after EB irradiation were analyzed using JASCO
FT/IR-4200 analyzer. The FTIR instrument is equipped with a glass
cell to analyze components of the resultant gas from the EB processing. Forty scans were collected on the gas samples at a resolution of 4 cm1. The N2 gas with a purity of 99.8% obtained from
Toei Kagaku Co., Ltd., was used for background correction. The concentration of NO, NO2 and N2O was calibrated using commercial
NO in N2, NO2 in N2 and N2O in N2 standard gas, respectively.
The absorbance band assigned at 1903, 1625 and 2235 cm1 in
the FTIR spectra (Fig. 2) of NO, NO2 and N2O standard gas, respectively was used to prepare the calibration curves.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. NOx removal performance of reactor type I

2. Materials and methods

2.1. EB reactor and experimental set up
The EB accelerator equipped with carbon nanotube (CNT) anode
and Ti window cathode was used for the NOx removal experiments.
A DC rectier with a maximum of 60 kV and 0.05 mA was used as a
radiation source for irradiating the pollutant gases. The distance
between anode and cathode was xed at 23 mm. The EB, accelerated from the CNT anode at high vacuum pressure (105 Torr) projected perpendicular to the process vessel of the gas ow duct
through Ti window having the diameter of 1.3 cm and thickness
of 0.5 mm. The schematic diagram of the EB reactor experimental
setup and the gas ow conguration of the reactor type I and reactor type II are illustrated in Fig. 1. The NO in N2 standard gas, concentration of 1000 ppm obtained from Sumitomo Seika Chemical
Co., Ltd. was used as a source pollutant gas. The O2 gas with the
purity of 99.8% from Taiyo Nippon Sanso Co., was utilized to mix
with NO in order to stimulate the conditions of the diesel engine
exhaust. The mass ow controller was used to control the gas ow
into the EB reactor as given in Fig. 1. The O2 was used as a carrier
gas for the water vapour to study the inuence of the water vapour
on the removal of NO and NOx. The O2 gas from the mass ow

Primarily, the feasibility of the EB technique using CNT anode

for the treatment of the gas stream containing the high concentration of NOx was investigated using reactor type I. The systematic
preliminary investigations on behaviour of NO in N2 gas and the
stimulated NO in N2 gas with O2 and water vapour under EB irradiation were carried out to understand the removal mechanism of
NOx. The NO in N2 gas stream was stimulated with O2 and water
vapour as it reects in the real diesel combustion exhausts.
3.1.1. Effect of EB irradiation
The behaviour of the NO gas under EB irradiation was studied in
a ow-through conguration using reactor type I (Fig. 1). The effect
of the electron beam on dry nitrogen gas stream containing the
high initial NO concentration of 1000 ppm was examined at two
different dose of 186 and 400 J/L. The gas ow rate was xed at
6.0 L/h. The reduction in the concentration of NO, NOx and the formation of NO2 and N2O with respect to time is given in Fig. 3a. It
was observed that the removal efciency of NO is attained to
40% at the applied dose of 186 J/L and further, the removal is enhanced to 50% while increasing the EB dose to 400 J/L. In a nonequilibrium technique, the electron mean energy is considerably
higher and efciently utilized on selective decomposition of the

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P. Lakshmipathiraj et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 229 (2013) 344350

Mass flow controller

N2 gas (99.99%)

EB reactor
Anode: CNT
NO standard gas, (1000 ppm)
N2 as Base gas
Cathode: Ti foil
Reactor type

Gas exit
FTIR analyser

O2 gas (99.99%)

Water gas at 20 oC

Moisture trap
Na2SO3 solution (3% w/v)
Flow rate: 1 cc/min

Electron beam

Gas inlet
NO,N2,O2,H2O

Electron beam

Gas inlet
NO,N2,O2,H2O

Gas outlet

Na2SO3
Circulation

Gas outlet

Reactor type I
Reactor type II
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of EB reactor set up and the reactor type I and reactor type II used for NOx removal performance.

pollutant molecule through the production of the ions and radicals

from the background gas molecules [26]. The electron beam treatment induce both oxidation and reduction reaction with pollutant
gas molecule. The breakdown mechanism of NO in the nitrogen
atmosphere under EB irradiation is initiated by producing the
atomic nitrogen through the electron impact dissociation of the
nitrogen gas molecule [23]. The N atom is generated as follows.

N2 e ! 2N e

The N atom is the most important reducing species in the absence of additives thus, promote mainly the reduction of NO to
N2 and O2 in the EB and discharge processing [23]. It was observed
from the Fig. 3a that around 370 ppm of NO is unaccounted after
EB processing. This is around 74% of total NO removal of
500 ppm. The unaccounted NO attributed to convert as N2 by the
N atom reduction on NO molecule. It is expressed as
Fig. 2. FTIR spectra of NO, NO2 and N2O standard gases.

N NO ! N2 O

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347

3.1.2. Effect of O2
To study the effect of O2 as in the real diesel combustion exhaust on NO removal during EB processing, the gas ow was stimulated by mixing dry O2 in the N2 gas stream. The stimulated gas
that contains the composition of 1000 ppm of NO in 90.9% N2
and 9.1% O2 with the ow rate of 6.6 L/h was subjected to investigate the removal performance of NO under EB irradiation using
reactor type I. The inuence of the O2 was investigated under different EB dose varied from 169 to 583 J/L. The experimental conditions and results are depicted in Fig. 4. It was observed that the
mixing of O2 in the NO gas stream increases the generation of
NO2 even before the EB process. The increase in the NO2 concentration was proportional to decrease in NO concentration (Fig. 4a).
The oxidation reaction of NO by O2 can be represented as follows.

2NO O2 ! 2NO2

Fig. 3. (a) Effect of EB dose on NO gas, and (b) FTIR spectra of the NO gas during EB
processing.

The formation of the NO2 and N2O was identied in the FTIR
spectra of the gas stream (Fig. 3b). The NO2 concentration was observed to increase from 40 to 60 ppm for the EB dose increased
from 186 to 400 J/L, respectively. It indicated that the EB would
also accelerate the oxidation of NO by the reaction with O atom.
The generation of the NO2 is represented in the following equation.

NO O N2 ! NO2 N2

It was also noticed that the presence of O2 increases the oxidation of NO to NO2 during EB irradiation. The NO2 generation was
increased from 295 to 389 ppm for the EB dose increased from
169 to 583 J/L, respectively (Fig. 4b).
The NO removal efciency was increased to 49%, 65% and 67% at
the applied dose of 169, 363 and 583 J/L, respectively in the presence of O2. Nevertheless, The NOx removal was achieved only to
the extent of 30% at the higher applied dose of 583 J/L (Fig. 4c). This
could be attributed to oxidation of NO by EB irradiation. Similarly,
the N2O concentration was found to form around 35 ppm at the
higher applied dose 583 J/L (Fig. 4d), which is lower compared to
EB experiment conducted in the absence of O2 gas (Fig. 3a). It
was observed that the 250 ppm of NO found to be unaccounted,
which could be attributed to convert as N2 as expressed in Eq.
(2). The NO reduction efciency was lowered 12% compared to
the EB experiment conducted in the absence of O2 (Fig. 3a).
To understand the removal mechanism of the NO and NOx under EB irradiation, it is necessary to nd the species involved in
the oxidation and reduction reaction. For the better understanding,
the behaviour of the dry gases such as N2, O2 and the mixture of
90.9% N2 and 9.1% O2 investigated separately under EB irradiation
with a dose of 583 J/L. The ow rate was xed at 6.6 L/h. The FTIR
spectra of the resultant gas obtained from the EB processing are given in the Fig. 5. The FTIR spectra recorded for N2 gas acquired after
EB processing (Fig. 5b) did not exhibit any signicant difference
compared to the spectra of the N2 and O2 mixture gas obtained
in the absence of EB irradiation (Fig. 5a). The bands assigned at
2145 and 1052 cm1 in the FTIR spectra (Fig. 5c) recorded for the

It was observed that the N2O is formed only after the NO2 generation (Fig. 3a). Also, it was noticed that the N2O concentration is
increased than the NO2 concentration while increasing the dose
from 186 to 400 J/L. It indicated that the generation of N2O is ascribed to occur from NO2 concentration. The NO2 would undergo
reduction reaction with N atom to form N2O as EB processing
accelerates the reduction reaction. The vibration bands assigned
at 2234 and 1299 cm1 in the FTIR spectra conrmed the N2O formation (Fig. 3b). Thus, the N2O concentration was found to increase from 40 to 70 ppm for the dose increased from 186 to
400 J/L, respectively. The formation of N2O is represented in the
following equation.

N NO2 ! N2 O O

Though the 500 ppm of NO was reduced within a residential

time of 1.38 s of electron beam processing, the NOx removal was
achieved only to the extent of 44% at the applied dose of 400 J/L
using reactor type I. Conversely, the FTIR spectra of the gas after
EB processing revealed the formation of the by-products such as
NO2 and N2O during course of EB irradiation of the NO gas (Fig. 3b).

Fig. 4. Inuence of O2 on (a) removal of NO during EB processing, (b) formation of

NO2 during EB processing, (c) removal of NOx during EB processing and (d)
formation of N2O during EB processing.

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P. Lakshmipathiraj et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 229 (2013) 344350

Fig. 5. FTIR spectra of the different gases during the EB processing (a) mixture of N2
(90.9%) and O2 (9.1%) gas (absence of EB processing), (b) N2 gas (Dose: 583 J/L), (c)
O2 gas (Dose: 583 J/L), (d) mixture of N2 (90.9%) and O2 (9.1%) gas (Dose: 583 J/L).

O2 gas after EB irradiation are the characteristic bands of O3. The O3

generation is consisting of the two steps that formation of singlet
oxygen from dissociation of O2 by the collision with high energy
electrons and its attachment to O2 molecule forming ozone [14].
The generation of the O3 during EB processing is given as follows.

to the moisture content of 5%. The dry O2 gas was used as a carrier
gas for the water vapour generated from the water at 20 C (Fig. 1).
The stimulated gas mixture was subjected to the EB processing at a
dose of 169 J/L with the ow rate of 6.6 L/h. The reduction in the
concentration of NO and NOx is given in Fig. 6. It was observed that
the removal of NO and NOx is found to be 65% and 38%, respectively. The NO2 generation was found to form 250 ppm. This is
50 ppm less compared to NO2 generation in the experiment conducted with the dry mixture gas (Fig. 4b). The N2O generation is
reached to the extent of 10 ppm.
The EB processing is a promising technique to produce more
numbers of excited nitrogen atoms, N(2D) and N(2P) for the reduction of NO. Nevertheless, it is reported that the electronically excited metastable N atoms (N(2D)) react rapidly with O2 to
produce NO, and counter act the NO reduction process by the
ground state N radicals [27]. The presence of H2O found to inhibit
the reactivity of the N(2D) towards NO2 generation. It is reported
that the rate constant for the interaction of the N(2D) with H2O
(2.5  1010 cm3 molecule1 s1) is very high compared to rate
constant for the interaction of the N(2D) with O2 (6  1012 cm3 molecule1 s1) [28]. The reaction of H2O with N(2D) can be shown
as follows.

N2 D H2 O ! NH  OH

12

The NH undergo reduction reaction with NO and produce N2.

O2 e ! O O e

NH NO ! N2  OH

O2 O ! O3

However, it is speculate that the presence of excess amount of

O2 and generation of the OH could have the possibilities to generate more NO and NO2 and it can be represented as follows

It was observed that the O3 production is found to increase

while increasing the EB dose (results not given). Nevertheless,
the vibration bands of O3 could not be assigned in the FTIR spectra
of the NO and O2 gas mixture acquired after EB processing (FTIR
spectra not given). It indicated that the generated O3 might have
consumed completely in the oxidation of NO to NO2 as given in
the Eq. (8), resulted in increasing the NO2 concentration from
295 to 389 ppm for the EB dose increasing from 169 to 583 J/L,
respectively (Fig. 4b).

NO O3 ! NO2 O2

The spectra of mixture gas (N2 and O2) after the EB processing
shown in Fig. 5d. The bands at 2234 and 1052 cm1 could be attributed to vibration bands of N2O and O3, respectively. The N2O concentration was found to reach 28 ppm. The excitation and
dissociation of N2 leads to a number of additional reaction paths
involving nitrogen atom and excited molecular state N2 (N2(A)).
The generation of O3 and N2O can be expressed as follows.

N O2 ! NO O

10

N2 A O ! N2 O

11

O2 O ! O3

NH O2 ! NO  OH

14

NO  OH ! HNO2

15

2HNO2 ! NO NO2 H2 O

16

It is shown that the compact EB processing on the gas stream

containing 1000 ppm of NO, 10% of O2 and 5% H2O at 100 C governs the NO removal mechanism via EB generated NH reduction.
The rate constant for the reaction of NH with NO (8  1011 cm3 molecule1 s1) is higher than that of the rate constant for the
reaction of O2 with NO (1.4  1014 cm3 molecule1 s1). The rate
constant for the reaction of NO with OH is 8.7  1014 cm3 molecule1 s1, which is very slower compared to the reaction of NH
with NO [27,29]. However, if there is an excess amount of O2 presented in the NO/N2 gas mixture, the reaction likely to precede the

e N2 O ! N2 A O

The presence of O2 in the NO gas stream increases the removal

efciency of NO by oxidation, which in turn inhibits the removal
efciency of NOx. Hence, it is necessary to take remediation measures to inhibit the generation of the NO2 and to increase NOx removal performance.
3.1.3. Effect of water vapour on the removal of NOx
To increase the NOx removal performance and stimulate the real
gas condition of the diesel engine exhaust, the gas mixture containing 1000 ppm of NO in 90.9% N2 and 9.1% O2 was stimulated

13

Fig. 6. Inuence of H2O on removal of NOx.

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349

II (Fig. 1). The selective reductant such as Na2SO3 (3% W/V) was
employed to scrub the NO2 formed during the EB processing. The
effect of the EB dose at 363 and 811 J/L on NO and NOx removal
was investigated with the gas ow rate of 6.6 L/h. The Na2SO3 solution ow to reactor was xed at 1 cc/min. The reduction in the concentration of NO and NOx and the experimental conditions are
depicted in Fig. 7. It was observed that the NO and NOx removal
could be achieved to 87.5% and 85%, respectively, with the retention time of 1.7 s. The high NOx removal could be attributed to conversion of NO2 to NO
2 by the Na2SO3 reduction. The overall
reaction of NO2 with SO2
3 can be expressed as follows [30,31].

2

2NO2 SO2
3 H2 O ! 2NO2 2H SO4

Fig. 7. Effect of Na2SO3 on removal of NOx during EB processing (gas ow rate:

6.6 L/h).

oxidation route and enhance the NO2 generation. In addition to

that the temperature and pressure conditions of the diesel engine
exhaust would also inuence the NOx removal mechanism. The NO
and NOx reduction was increased to 15% and 20% compared to the
earlier experiment with the dry gas mixture of NO in N2 and O2
(Fig. 4). The higher NOx removal could attribute to less production
of the NO2 due to the inuence of water.
The removal efciency of NOx in the presence of O2 is observed
to be only 20% at the EB dose of 169 J/L. The poor performance of
NOx removal in the presence of O2 attributed to NO2 generation.
The inuence of water vapour in the NO/N2 and O2 gas mixture
is not only increased the NOx removal to the extent of 40% but also,
decrease the NO2 generation. The preliminary experimental results
obtained using reactor I, exhibited that the NO2 generation should
minimize and the residential time of the gas in the EB reactor
should increase to improve the overall NOx removal efciency of
the EB processing. Accordingly, the reactor type II (Fig. 1) was designed and fabricated to increase the overall NOx removal performance. The performance of the reactor type II on NOx removal
efciency is discussed in coming section.
3.2. NOx removal performance of the reactor type II
The gas mixture containing 1000 ppm of NO in 90.9% N2, 9.1%
O2 and 5% water vapour subjected to EB processing using reactor

17

Though the Na2SO3 scrubbing was effective in the reduction of

generated NO2, the NO2 concentration was found to reach 95 ppm.
However, the NO2 concentration was dropped to 20 ppm while
applying the EB dose. Conversely, the N2O was observed to form
the extent of 120 ppm during the EB processing. Also it could be
seen that the N2O generation is proportional to the decline in the
NO2 concentration during EB processing. It is in good agreement
with our earlier experiments (Fig. 3a) that N2O generation is
mainly by NO2 reduction as given in the Eq. (4).
Further, the experiment was conducted with similar gas composition with the ow rate of 4.95 L/h. The EB dose at 484 and
1082 J/L on the removal of NO and NOx was examined and the results are given in Fig. 8. The removal trend of NO and NOx was observed as similar that of previous experiment. The NO and NOx
removal could achieved to the extent of 97% and 95%, respectively.
This could be attributed to the longer retention time of the reactant
gas mixture. The N2O concentration was found to increase
130 ppm.
4. Conclusion
The Study clearly demonstrated the feasibility of the EB technique for the treatment of gas stream containing very high concentration of NOx at atmospheric pressure conditions and provides the
scope for future investigation on treatment of real diesel engine exhaust in ships. The EB irradiation on dry mixture gas of N2 and O2
revealed the formation of the products such as O3 and N2O. However, the O3 generation could not be identied in the NO and O2
gas mixture acquired after EB processing. It indicated that the generated O3 might have consumed completely in the oxidation of NO
to NO2 resulted in increasing the NO2 concentration. Conversely, it
was observed that the presence of water vapours in small amount
could inhibit the formation of NO2 under EB irradiation. The scrubbing of Na2SO3 during the EB processing was effective in the reduction of generated NO2 concentration thus increased the NOx
removal performance of the reactor. The NO2 was found to be
source for the formation of N2O under EB irradiation. Further, necessary measures to be investigated to minimize the generation of
N2O during EB processing.
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Fig. 8. Effect of Na2SO3 on removal of NOx during EB processing (gas ow rate:

4.95 L/h).

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