Investigation of a new approach to decompose two potent greenhouse gases: Photoreduction of SF6 and SF5CF3 in the presence of acetone

In this paper, we addressed the utilization of photochemical method as an innovative technology for the destruction and removal of two potent greenhouse gases, SF6 and SF5CF3. The destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) of the process was determined as a function of excitation wavelength, irradiation time, initial ratio of acetone to SF5X (X represented F or CF3), initial SF5X concentration, additive oxygen and water vapor concentration. A complete removal was achieved by a radiation period of 55 min and 120 min for SF6–CH3COCH3 system and SF5CF3–CH3COCH3 system respectively under 184.9 nm irradiation. Extra addition of water vapor can enhance DRE by approximately 6% points in both systems. Further studies with GC/MS and FT-IR proved that no hazardous products such as S2F10, SO2F2, SOF2, SOF4 were generated in this process.