Technology prospects for plasma-chemical air purification from formaldehyde and formic acid in industry

The effectiveness of plasma-chemical air purification technology was studied in comparison with some technologies for suppressing waste gases (adsorption, catalysis). We use proven approaches (environmental-economic, expert, hierarchical evaluation procedure and the criterion of relative overall benefit) to selecting systems for neutralizing volatile pollutants. Thus, environmental-economic and expert approaches, as well as the criterion of relative overall benefit, make it possible to compare technologies based on operating costs (technological risk, energy efficiency, reliability and cost of production assets). At the same time, the hierarchical evaluation procedure, in addition to the listed indicators, takes into account ergonomics and resistance to external influences. It is shown that plasma-chemical cleaning technology is not a priority when choosing systems for neutralizing waste gases from formaldehyde, since 3 out of 4 approaches indicate the ineffectiveness of this technology relative to the adsorption method. When cleaning air from formic acid vapors, plasmachemical technology in 2 out of 4 cases is as effective as the adsorption method. The effectiveness of plasma-chemical, catalytic and adsorption technologies is considered from the point of view of the methodology for assessing the “carbon footprint”, which makes it possible to quantitatively study the emission of “greenhouse gas” not only at the stage of equipment operation, but also at the stages of production, transportation and disposal. However, the obtained carbon footprint values for low-temperature plasma are the best among comparable available technologies, because the total amount of CO2 emissions when using it is reduced by 80% (on average) due to the fact the relative total energy costs are lower.