Destruction of volatile organic compounds used in a semiconductor industry by a capillary tube discharge reactor

TLDR

Nonthermal plasma technologies offer an innovative approach to decomposing various volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The study used DC capillary tube discharge plasma reactors to evaluate toluene, EGM, trichloroethane, and trichloroethylene decomposition at 50–2300 ppm in dry air, examining gas flow, VOC concentration, and operating conditions to assess conversion efficiency. VOC destruction efficiencies up to 90 % were achieved with a short residence time of 3.8 ms and a destruction energy efficiency of 95 g VOC kWh⁻¹, demonstrating laboratory‑scale plasma viability for semiconductor clean‑room VOC control.

Abstract

Nonthermal plasma technologies offer an innovative approach to the problem of decomposing various volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The authors focused on DC capillary tube discharge plasma reactors to study the decomposition/destruction efficiency for toluene, EGM, trichloroethane and trichloroethylene at 50-2300 ppm levels in dry air. The effects of gas flow rate, VOC concentration and reactor operating conditions on decomposition and analysis of reactant conversion for each VOC were investigated. The results show that VOC destruction efficiency as high as 90% can be achieved, even under a short residence time (3.8 ms) with a destruction energy efficiency of up to 95 g (VOC)/kWh. Laboratory-scale plasma technology was successfully demonstrated for its potential application for VOC control in the semiconductor clean-room environment.