Feasibility analysis on photocatalytic removal of gaseous ozone in aircraft cabins

Ozone from bleed air is a main contaminant in aircraft cabins and can be harmful to air passengers' health. In order to determine the feasibility of photocatalytic ozone purification from cabin air, a catalytic TiO2 film was coated on the surface of an activated honeycomb carbon filter and its ozone removal performance was analyzed. The effects of reaction conditions (such as flow velocity, humidity, initial concentration and the wavelength of UV light) on the degradation of ozone were investigated. The experimental results showed that ozone removal efficiency decreased with the increase in flow velocity when the photocatalytic decomposition of ozone was dominated by surface reaction and the dual effect of humidity on ozone removal was observed. However, the flow velocity of bleed air in aircraft cabin was much too higher and humidity was virtually zero, which were two major constraints limiting the application of the photocatalytic removal of ozone to bleed air purification. Therefore, controlling the reaction conditions will facilitate ozone removal from aircraft cabins using photocatalytic air purification.