ORIGINAL PAPER Removal of C 3 F 8 Via the Combination of Non-Thermal Plasma, Adsorption and Catalysis Bor Yuan Lin • Moo Been Chang • Hsin Liang Chen • How Ming Lee • Sheng Jen Yu • Shou Nan Li Received: 20 September 2010 / Accepted: 11 May 2011 / Published online: 27 May 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract The feasibility of C 3 F 8 abatement via combining nonthermal plasma with adsorption and/or catalysis is investigated in this study. In terms of the simultaneous combination of plasma, adsorption and catalysis (CPAC), three different configurations including A/C layer (adsorbent layer prior to catalyst layer), C/A layer (catalyst layer prior to adsorbent layer) and A/C mixture (adsorbent and catalyst are mechanically mixed) are adopted. For all the experimental tests conducted in this study, the gas stream consists of 500 ppm C 3 F 8 , 2% O 2 , and balanced N 2 . The experimental results indicate that C 3 F 8 removal efficiencies depend on what kind of packing material is adopted (adsorbent, catalyst or both) and how the material is packed within the plasma reactor. The removal efficiencies obtained with different reactors are in the order as: CPAC (A/C layer; AC mixture) [ CPA (plasma with adsorbent alone) [ CPC (plasma with catalyst alone) [ CPAC (C/A layer). The indentified products after treatment include CO 2 , CO, N 2 O and CF 4 . The formation of C 2 F 6 is not observed in this study, which is encouraging since the global warming potential of C 2 F 6 is actually higher than that of C 3 F 8 . Keywords Global warming  Greenhouse gases (GHGs)  Perfluorocompounds (PFCs)  Plasma catalysis  Adsorbent B. Y. Lin  M. B. Chang (&) Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taoyuan County 320, Taiwan, ROC e-mail: mbchang@ncuen.ncu.edu.tw H. L. Chen  H. M. Lee Physics Division, Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER), Longtan, Taoyuan County 325, Taiwan, ROC S. J. Yu  S. N. Li Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Hsinchu 310, Taiwan, ROC 123 Plasma Chem Plasma Process (2011) 31:585–594 DOI 10.1007/s11090-011-9303-6