Decomposition of NO in automobile exhaust by plasma-photocatalysis synergy.

The combination of plasma discharge and TiO2 photocatalysis exhibits high performances in the removal of nitrogen monoxide (NO). This article is aimed at elucidating the relationships between NO decomposition efficiency and various experimental parameters, including voltages, humidity and temperature. The experimental results indicate that the efficiency of NO removal by synergic plasma-catalyst coupling is significantly higher than plasma only or photocatalyst only systems. Moreover, the NO removal efficiency improves with the increase of applied voltage. Meanwhile, a higher humidity results in a reduced number of electron-hole pairs at the surface of TiO2 photocatalyst, leading to lower synergic purification efficiencies. Finally, the efficiency of NO removal is raised with the increase of temperature due to the fact that the adsorption of NO and water by nano-TiO2 is affected by environmental temperature.