Kinetics studies on pentachlorophenol degradation in soil during pulsed discharge plasma process

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) degradation kinetics in soil during pulse discharge processes was studied experimentally and theoretically in terms of high-energy electrons, PCP initial concentration, oxygen concentration, and treatment time. Higher PCP degradation efficiency was obtained with more high-energy electrons; 83.9% of PCP was degraded at high-energy electrons 1.9 × 1012/pulse after 60 min's treatment, which decreased to 60.9% at high-energy electrons 6.8 × 1011/pulse. Lower PCP concentration, higher oxygen concentration and longer treatment time benefited PCP degradation. Numerical simulations were conducted to simulate PCP degradation processes. By qualitatively comparing the experimental and theoretical results, it was found that PCP degradation behaviors were exactly similar.