Extremely low power plasma reactor system for automotive nitrogen oxide emissions monitoring

摘要

A sidestream located hyper-plasma reactor (100) having an axially discrete pattern of alternating regions of active (116) and passive (118) electric field along the axial direction (F). The hyper-plasma reactor (100) has a great efficacy in terms of ultra low power consumption and copious production of NOx converting aldehydes in the absence of NO by applying plasma power only to an air and hydrocarbon mix sidestream gas flow. Only a small fraction (1% to 2%) of plasma power is required as compared to that for a conventional plasma reactor to treat the full exhaust gas stream. The hyper-plasma reactor (100) produces ozone which reacts subsequently with hydrocarbons to produce aldehydes ("ozonolysis"). The sidestream location of the hyper-plasma reactor (100) allows for the full exhaust stream to bypass it, without significantly affecting the overall NOx conversion performance in the catalytic converter (124).