Abbas, Y., W. Lu, Q. Wang, H. Dai, Y. Liu, X. Fu, C. Pan, H. Ghaedi, F. Cheng, and H. Wang.
Environmental Pollution 260:113944(2020)

A double dielectric barrier discharge (DDBD) plasma reactor was optimized with influential parameters including applied voltage, type of carrier gas, air feeding rate and initial pyrene concentrations in contaminated soil. Input energy was found to have a great effect on pyrene remediation efficiency followed by pyrene initial concentration. The effect of air feeding rate was insignificant. The remediation efficiency of pyrene under air, nitrogen, and argon as carrier gas were approximately 79.7, 40.7 and 38.2% respectively. Pyrene remediation efficiency was favored at high levels of applied voltages and low levels of pyrene initial concentration (10 mg/kg) and air feeding rate (0.85 L/min). Computing the system's energy efficiency showed that an optimal applied voltage (35.8 kV) and higher initial pyrene concentration (200 mg/kg) favored high energy efficiency. A regression model predicting pyrene remediation under DDBD plasma condition was developed using the data from a face-centered central composite design experiment. A residual toxicity analysis depicted that the respiratory activity increased more than 21 times (from 0.04 to 0.849 mg O₂/g) with a pyrene remediation efficiency of 81.1%.