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WO-2026093899-A1 - METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR UTILIZING PLASMAS IN REACTORS WITH TRANSIENT PRESSURE CONDITIONS

WO2026093899A1WO 2026093899 A1WO2026093899 A1WO 2026093899A1WO-2026093899-A1

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to apparatus, systems, and methods for producing non-thermal plasmas (NTPs) at greater than atmospheric pressure. In some embodiments, an apparatus comprises a first chamber that defines a variable, an actuator, and a plasma generator. The actuator is configured to transiently vary a pressure within the variable volume of the first chamber. The plasma generator is configured to produce plasma within at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or a volume of a second chamber. The plasma generator is in selective fluid communication with the variable volume of the first chamber.

Inventors

  • BROMBERG, LESLIE
  • CHEN, YU
  • GIANNAKAKIS, Georgios
  • KASSERIS, EMMANOUIL
  • KRAVCHENKO, Pavlo Ivan
  • PAVAN, Colin Armstrong
  • TRIANTOPOULOS, Vasileios

Assignees

  • Emvolon, Inc.

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20251028
Priority Date
20241029

Claims (20)

  1. 1. An apparatus, comprising: a first chamber that defines a variable volume; an actuator configured to transiently vary a pressure within the variable volume of the first chamber; and an energy source configured to produce plasma in at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or a volume of a second chamber without causing combustion, the energy source in selective fluid communication with the variable volume of the first chamber.
  2. 2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a trigger configured to trigger the energy source based on a position of the actuator.
  3. 3. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2, further comprising: an inlet valve configured to cause reactant gas to enter the variable volume; and an outlet vale configured to allow one of compressed reactant gas to enter the volume of the second chamber or a product gas different from the reactant gas to be discharged from the variable volume.
  4. 4. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-3, wherein: the actuator includes a reciprocating piston, at least a portion of the reciprocating piston being disposed within the first chamber.
  5. 5. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-4, wherein the energy source includes a plasma generator configured to produce the plasma within the variable volume of the first chamber, the apparatus further comprising: a catalyst disposed in the variable volume of the first chamber.
  6. 6. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-5, further comprising: a catalyst disposed in the volume of the second chamber, the plasma produced by the energy source at least one of: 326310289 34 Agent’s File Ref. EMVL-003/01WO 353000-2012 being produced in the variable volume of the first chamber and flowing to the volume of the second chamber, or being produced in the volume of the second chamber.
  7. 7. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-6, wherein the energy source includes: a high-voltage electrode disposed in at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber; and at least one of a counter-electrode or a grounded structure disposed in the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber.
  8. 8. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-7, further comprising: one or more sensors configured to monitor at least one of gas composition, pressure, temperature, electrical -discharge characteristics, or vibration in at least one of the first chamber or the second chamber.
  9. 9. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-8, further comprising: a control unit configured to initiate a regeneration cycle in at least one of the first chamber or the second chamber; and a sensor configured to detect, in the at least one of the first chamber or the second chamber, at least one of performance degradation, fouling, or a deviation from a predetermined operating condition, the control unit being configured to initiate the regeneration cycle based on the at least one of the performance degradation, the fouling, or the deviation from the predetermined operating condition.
  10. 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the regeneration cycle includes at least one of: introduction of a first gas into the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber, the first gas being different from a second gas disposed in the at least one of the first chamber or the second chamber before the regeneration cycle; or application of at least one of a plasma discharge or microwave discharge to remove accumulated deposits from at least one of: a surface of the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber, or a catalyst structure disposed in the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber. 326310289 35 Agent’s File Ref. EMVL-003/01WG 353000-2012
  11. 11. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-10, wherein: the energy source includes a microwave energy source; and the plasma includes non-thermal plasma generated by the microwave energy source by producing microwave radiation in the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber and during at least a portion of a compression cycle associated with the actuator.
  12. 12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein at least one of: the microwave energy source operates at a frequency between about 0.4 GHz and about 5 GHz; or the microwave radiation includes one or more pulses having a duration between about 1 microsecond and about 1 millisecond and a duty cycle between about 1% and about 50%.
  13. 13. The apparatus of claim 11 or 12, further comprising: at least one of a waveguide, a coaxial probe, or a dielectric window, configured to direct the microwave radiation from the microwave energy source to the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber.
  14. 14. The apparatus of any one of claims 11-13, further comprising: a catalyst support disposed within the at least one of the variable volume of the first chamber or the volume of the second chamber and including a dielectric material configured to alter a microwave field distribution associated with the microwave radiation and promote localized formation of the plasma.
  15. 15. A method, comprising: causing a reactant gas to enter a reaction chamber; transiently varying a pressure of the reactant gas; based on the pressure of the reactant gas being below a threshold above which plasma cannot be initiated, generating a plasma within the reaction chamber; and in response to the generating, discharging, from the reaction chamber, a product gas that is different from the reactant gas.
  16. 16. The method of claim 15, wherein causing the reactant gas to enter the reaction chamber includes: 326310289 36 Agent’s File Ref. EMVL-003/01WO 353000-2012 opening, based on a crankshaft associated with the reaction chamber being in a first orientation, an intake valve of the reaction chamber to cause the reaction chamber to breathe in the reactant gas; and closing the intake valve based on the crankshaft being in a second orientation different from the first orientation.
  17. 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the opening the intake valve and the closing the intake valve is mechanically facilitated by a cam coupled to the crankshaft.
  18. 18. The method of any one of claims 15-17, further comprising: excluding causing combustion in the reaction chamber between the causing the reactant gas to enter the reaction chamber and the discharging the product gas.
  19. 19. The method of any one of claims 15-18, wherein the plasma includes a non-thermal plasma (NTP).
  20. 20. The method of any one of claims 15-19, wherein generating the plasma includes triggering a plasma generator to generate a plurality of nanosecond pulsed discharges.

Description

Agent’s File Ref. EMVL-003/01WG 353000-2012 METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR UTILIZING PLASMAS IN REACTORS WITH TRANSIENT PRESSURE CONDITIONS CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [00011 This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/713,386, filed October 29, 2024, and titled “METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR PRODUCING NON-THERMAL PLASMAS AT ELEVATED PRESSURE,” the content of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. GOVERNMENT SUPPORT [0002J This invention was made with government support under Award Number DE- SC0020700 awarded by the Department of Energy. The government has certain rights in the invention. FIELD [0003J One or more embodiments described herein relate to apparatus, systems, and methods for producing non-thermal plasmas (NTPs) at greater than atmospheric pressure. BACKGROUND [0004J Some known techniques apply non-thermal plasmas (NTPs) at ambient (e.g., atmospheric) pressure or below ambient pressure during chemical synthesis. Some known industrial scale implementations of NTPs are used to generate ozone. Known plasma and/or plasma catalysis systems that operate at atmospheric pressure include a packed bed reactor (PBR) and a gliding arc reactor (GAR). In a PBR, gas flow having a pressure at or below ambient flows across a catalyst in a tube. The central shaft of the tube is a high voltage electrode, and an annular ground electrode is disposed outside of and concentric to the tube. An inner surface of the tube includes a dielectric material, and a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is formed between the inner conductor (e.g., the shaft) and the outer conductors (e.g., the inner surface of the tube). The field of the DBD is typically modified by the presence of the catalyst (e.g., a dielectric catalyst). The design of the PBR can cause the discharge to remain close to the catalyst surface so that excited species in the gas can interact with the catalyst surface before quenching. In a GAR, a “warm plasma” (e.g., a plasma that is in non-equilibrium 326310289 1 Agent’s File Ref. EMVL-003/01WG 353000-2012 while having significant gas heating) is created between two electrodes as gas flows between these two electrodes. A combination of heat and high-energy electrons activates the gas, and the gas then reacts either in the gas phase or with a downstream catalyst. [0005] Both PBRs and GARs have significant limitations, particularly at large scales (e.g., in industrial application). For example, because PBRs and GARs operate at ambient pressures, plasma length scales are typically on the order of 1 cm. Therefore, reactor design is significantly constrained to small sizes. Moreover, to achieve suitable residence times, flow rates within PBRs and GARs are also limited. If gas flow rate is increased to achieve higher throughput, conversion rate is significantly reduced because less gas interacts with the plasma. As a result, reactor throughput is low to achieve reasonable conversion efficiency. Scale-up to industrial scale would require large numbers (e.g., hundreds to thousands) of individual reactor units operating in parallel, which can significantly increase complexity and/or capital cost. There is a need, therefore, for systems and methods that produce NTPs at above ambient pressure to facilitate large scale chemical synthesis and/or reaction rate enhancement. f 0006 [ Additionally, in at least some instances, NTPs can be effective at breaking chemical bonds due to target energy deposition of NTPs. In plasma synthesis and/or plasma catalytic synthesis, for example, the chemical bonds of feedstock can be broken by plasma, and when the resulting radicals recombine, those radicals create the target product. This recombination can occur in a gas phase and/or on the surface of a heterogenous catalyst. A challenge with at least some NTP reactors involves separation of the plasma-driven bond-breaking process from the bond-forming process. If these processes are co-located in space and time, the plasma can break apart the bonds in the product species, limiting yield. In some known GARs, spatial separation of plasma and catalyst is accomplished by locating the catalyst downstream of the discharge. In some known PBRs, the plasma occurs in the gas phase while recombination occurs on the surface of the catalyst, which is separated from the high energy electrons of the plasma by a boundary layer. The effectiveness of these GARs and PBRs, however, depends on the lifetime of the intermediate radicals and the timescales of mass transport between the creation location in the plasma and the recombination location. A need exists, therefore, for systems and methods configured to implement a batch process that facilitates temporal separation of the bond-breaking and recombination. 326310289 2 Agent’s File Ref. EMVL-003/01WG 353000-2012 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0007] FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a transient reactor system, according to an embodiment. [0008] FIG. 2 sho