Analytical thermal model for cylindrical DBD reactors: how to obtain a reliable gas temperature distribution, and why is it so important

We present a compact analytical thermal model for coaxial dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactors, providing reliable gas-temperature estimates for system-level analysis and design of non-thermal plasma (NTP) processes; NOₓ abatement is the target of the presented experimental validations. Gas temperature has a major impact on most chemical treatments, and is a critical parameter for plasma kinetic solvers (ZdPlaskin in our case, for NOₓ abatement efficiency evaluation). Our model couples a volumetric heat source (plasma power deposition) to heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation. We validate it experimentally, by comparisons across a wide range of power and flow, between predicted gas temperatures with measured rotational temperatures obtained from optical emission spectroscopy and between calculated surface temperatures with measured ones obtained by infrared thermography. The model captures very well the main trends and provides temperature estimates with good agreement to the experimental measures. We discuss how the model parameters and outputs can be exported for integration into global chemical kinetics simulations and system-level studies of NOₓ abatement, or any other gas treatment.