Studies on atmospheric plasma abatement of PFCs

Microwave plasma at 2.45 GHz frequency operating at atmospheric pressure in synthetic gas mixtures containing N2, CF4, C2F6, CHF3, and SF6 were investigated experimentally for various gas mixture constituents and operating conditions, with respect to their ability to destroy perfluorocompounds. It was found that the destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) of the process is highly dependent on the total gas flow. DREs of up to 99.9% have been achieved using 1.8 kW of microwave power at 20 l/min total flow rate.