Plasma based CO 2 and CH 4 conversion: A modeling perspective

This paper gives an overview of our plasma chemistry modeling for CO 2 and CH 4 conversion in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) and microwave (MW) plasma. We focus on pure CO 2 splitting and pure CH 4 reforming, as well as mixtures of CO 2 /CH 4 , CH 4 /O 2 , and CO 2 /H 2 O. We show calculation results for the conversion, energy efficiency, and product formation, in comparison with experiments where possible. We also present the underlying chemical reaction pathways, to explain the observed trends. For pure CO 2 , a comparison is made between a DBD and MW plasma, illustrating that the higher energy efficiency of the latter is attributed to the more important role of the vibrational levels.