In order to supply fresh agricultural products throughout the year, it is required to develop related technologies for long-term storage. One of the factors affecting long-term storage of agricultural products is the concentration of ethylene (C2H4) that is produced during the respiration process of agricultural products. Commercial catalysts have problems such as poor low-temperature activity and selectivity to CO2. These problems may be overcome by the combination of plasma with catalysis. The objective of this work is to develop environment-friendly agricultural product storage technology using plasma and catalyst. The process consists of repetitive cycles of adsorption/enrichment and plasma-catalytic decomposition. The inside of the plasma reactor is filled with adsorptive catalyst (Pd/ZSM-5 prepared by ion-exchange) which can highly concentrate C2H4 during the adsorption step and catalyze the oxidation of the concentrated C2H4 in the plasma decomposition step. The presence of catalyst helps completely oxidize the adsorbed C2H4. Further, when the catalyst is placed in the plasma space, it is activated at temperatures lower than that required for the thermal catalysis, so that C2H4 oxidation can be effectively performed without additional energy for activating the catalyst. The feed gas for the dynamic adsorption and plasma-catalytic oxidation of the adsorbed C2H4 was a mixture of C2H4 (20~100 ppm), CO2 (10000 ppm), H2O (100% humidity) and air. A chamber (1×1×1 m3) containing the above gas mixture was used to examine the performance of the plasma-catalytic process. The proposed ethylene removal system could effectively reduce C2H4 at near room temperature to harmless level.

Removal of dilute ethylene using repetitive cycles of adsorption and plasma-catalytic oxidation over Pd/ZSM-5 catalyst

2019 Fall National Meeting

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