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Carbon Dioxide Splitting in a Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma: A Combined Experimental and Computational Study
Author(s) -
Aerts Robby,
Somers Wesley,
Bogaerts Annemie
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201402818
Subject(s) - dielectric barrier discharge , plasma , energy transformation , energy conversion efficiency , dielectric , greenhouse gas , materials science , range (aeronautics) , chemistry , chemical physics , atomic physics , optoelectronics , thermodynamics , physics , ecology , quantum mechanics , biology , composite material
Plasma technology is gaining increasing interest for the splitting of CO 2 into CO and O 2 . We have performed experiments to study this process in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma with a wide range of parameters. The frequency and dielectric material did not affect the CO 2 conversion and energy efficiency, but the discharge gap can have a considerable effect. The specific energy input has the most important effect on the CO 2 conversion and energy efficiency. We have also presented a plasma chemistry model for CO 2 splitting, which shows reasonable agreement with the experimental conversion and energy efficiency. This model is used to elucidate the critical reactions that are mostly responsible for the CO 2 conversion. Finally, we have compared our results with other CO 2 splitting techniques and we identified the limitations as well as the benefits and future possibilities in terms of modifications of DBD plasmas for greenhouse gas conversion in general.