CO2 decomposition in a packed DBD plasma reactor: influence of packing materials

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) decomposition has drawn significant interest over the years due to its global warming potential. A packed bed dielectric barrier discharge reactor has been designed and tested for the conversion of CO₂ into carbon monoxide (CO). The discharge volume was filled with different packing materials (glass beads, alumina, anatase titania, ceria) so as to understand the influence of dielectric constant, porosity and ultraviolet light. Typical results indicated that the packed bed DBD promotes CO₂ conversion into CO and oxygen and CeO₂ packing showed the highest conversion (10.6%) at a specific input energy of 4.8 J mL⁻¹. The best performance of CeO₂ may be due to oxygen vacant sites, which stabilize the atomic oxygen formed in the reaction and thereby promoting CO₂ conversion. During the present study, CO₂ decomposition has been achieved at ∼0.139 eV per molecule.