Minimization of Chemical Kinetic Reaction Set for System-Level Study of Non-Thermal Plasma NOx Abatement Process

A system-level study of a NOx abatement process by means of non-thermal plasma (NTP) generated with dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) is the framework of this article. With the goal of system improvement, the kinetic reaction simulation software ZdPlaskin is considered to select the most favorable operating conditions in order to optimize NOx abatement (deNOx). A parametric exploration of the performance, through variations in operating conditions (temperature, power injection pattern, and input gas mixture composition), requires highly numerous simulations; thus, the shortest possible computation times with robust results are of significant interest. As such, an analysis and filtering method is proposed and detailed to build a minimized chemical kinetic reaction set, allowing us to reliably analyze the impact of the selected operating conditions for the DBD reactor on treatment performance.