Tributyl phosphate (TBP) is a well-known and important compound in the nuclear industry for the nuclear fuel reprocessing, and it is also used in a various field such as plastic industry as antifoaming agent. Untreated organic pollutants in TBP can remain in the soil water and cause serious environmental pollution, thus it should be degraded through environmentally friendly methods. The non-thermal plasma-based advanced oxidation process (AOP) is one of the most widely studied and best developed processes owing to its simple structure and ease of operation. In this study, a plasma-based AOP was stably generated using submerged multi-hole dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) and applied to relatively high concentration of TBP solution. A submerged DBD plasma system was designed to directly interact with water, thereby producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) and functioning as a powerful oxidizer. Additionally, UV, O3, and H2O2 are generated by the developed plasma system without using any other additives to produce OH radicals for degrading organic pollutants; therefore, this system circumvents the use of complex and advanced oxidation processes. The electrical properties and concentrations of the active species were analyzed to establish optimal plasma operating conditions for degrading TBP solution. The results were analyzed by measuring the total organic carbon (TOC) and changes in solution properties. Based on these results, a degradation mechanism of TBP solution is proposed. After 50 min of plasma treatment, the concentration of TOC was gradually decreased. Consequently, we found that plasma-based AOP using submerged multi-hole DBD has advantages as an alternative technology for degrading organic pollutants such as TBP solution.

We investigated dry etching of acrylic (PMMA) in O2/N2 plasmas using a multi-layers electrode reactive ion etching (RIE) system. The multi-layers electrode RIE system had an electrode (or a chuck) consisted of 4 individual layers in a series. The diameter of the electrodes was 150 mm. The etch process parameters we studied were both applied RIE chuck power on the electrodes and % O2 composition in the N2/O2 plasma mixtures. In details, the RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W.% O2 in the plasmas was varied from 0 to 100% at the fixed total gas flow rates of 20 sccm. The etch results of acrylic in the multilayers electrode RIE system were characterized in terms of negatively induced dc bias on the electrode, etch rates and RMS surface roughness. Etch rate of acrylic was increased more than twice from about 0.2μm/min to over 0.4μm/min when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W. 1 sigma uniformity of etch rate variation of acrylic on the 4 layers electrode was slightly increased from 2.3 to 3.2% when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W at the fixed etch condition of 16 sccm O2/4 sccm N2 gas flow and 100 mTorr chamber pressure. Surface morphology was also investigated using both a surface profilometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The RMS roughness of etched acrylic surface was strongly affected by % O2 composition in the O2/N2 plasmas. However, RIE chuck power changes hardly affected the roughness results in the range of 75-200 W. During etching experiment, Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) data was taken and we found both N2 peak (354.27 nm) and O2 peak (777.54 nm). The preliminarily overall results showed that the multi-layers electrode concept could be successfully utilized for high volume reactive ion etching of acrylic in the future.

For the field application of dielectric barrier discharge plasma reactor, a multi-plasma reactor was investigated for the inactivation of microorganisms in sewage. We also considered the possibility of degradation of non-biodegradable matter (UV254) and total organic carbon (TOC) in sewage. The multi-plasma reactor in this study was divided into high voltage neon transformers, gas supply unit and three plasma modules (consist of discharge, ground electrode and quartz dielectric tube). The experimental results showed that the inactivation of microorganisms with treated water type ranked in the following order: distilled water > synthetic sewage effluent >> real sewage effluent. The dissolved various components in the real sewage effluent highly influenced the performance of the inactivation of microorganisms. After continuous plasma treatment for 10 min at 180 V, residual microorganisms appeared below 2 log and UV254 absorbance (showing a non-biodegradable substance in water) and TOC removal rate were 27.5% and 8.5%, respectively. Therefore, when the sewage effluent is treated with plasma, it can be expected the inactivation of microorganisms and additional improvement of water quality. It was observed that the NH4 +-N and PO4 3--P concentrations of sewage was kept at the constant plasma discharging for 30 min. On the other hand, NO3 --N concentration was increased with proceeding of the plasma discharge.

Dielectric discharges are an emerging technique in environmental pollutant degradation, which that are characterized by the production of hydroxyl radicals as the primary degradation species. For practical application of the plasma reactor, reactor that can handle large amounts of water are needed. Plasma research to date has focused on small-scale water treatment. This study was carried out basic study for scale-up of a single DBD (dielectric barrier discharge) plasma reactor. The degradation of N, N-Dimethyl-4-nitrosoaniline (RNO, indicator of the generation of OH radical) was used as a performance indicator of multi-plasma reactor. The experiments is divided into two parts: design parameters [effect of distance of single plasma module (1~14 cm), arrangement of ground electrode (single and multi), rector number (1~5) and power number (1~5)]; operation parameter [effect of applied voltage (60~220 V), air flow rate (1~5 L/min), electric conductivity of solution (1.4 μS/cm, deionized water)~18.8 mS/cm (addition of NaCl 10 g/L) and pH (5~9)]. Considering the electric stability of the plasma reactor, optimum spacing between the single plasma module was 2 cm. Multi discharge electrodes - single ground electrode array was selected. Combination of power 3-plasma module 5 was the optimal combination for maximum RNO degradation. The optimum 1st voltage and air flow rate for RNO degradation were 180 V and 4 L/min, respectively. The pH and conductivity of the solution was not influencing the RNO degradation.