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, NOx 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.