Abstract
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) at a concentration of 500 mg/L in water was successfully degraded using pulsed plasmas generated inside oxygen or argon bubbles. 6 kV-200 ns pulsed voltages were applied to the water bubbles at repetition rates of 500∼2000 Hz and pulse plasmas were generated along the inner surface of gas bubbles. After 120 min operation, almost half of the fluorine atoms were detached from PFOA molecules. The decomposition energy efficiency for PFOA obtained with oxygen was 140 mg/kWh which value was quite large as comparing to the values obtained with other chemical methods.
