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Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma is a promising technology for catalysis due to its low‐temperature operation, cost‐effectiveness, and silent operation. This review comprehensively analyzes the design and operational parameters of DBD plasma reactors for three key catalytic applications: CH₄conversion, CO₂splitting, and dry reforming of methane (DRM). While catalyst selection is crucial for achieving desired product selectivity, reactor design and reaction parameters such as discharge power, electrode gap, reactor length, frequency, dielectric material thickness, and feed gas flow rate, significantly influence discharge characteristics and reaction mechanisms. This review also explores the influence of less prominent factors, such as electrode shape and applied voltage waveforms. Additionally, this review addresses the challenges of DBD plasma catalysis, including heat loss, temperature effects on discharge characteristics, and strategies for enhancing overall efficiency. 

This study reports that a 14 wt% Ni–1 wt% Ru bimetallic catalyst supported on CeO₂nanorods can offer superior conversion and stability against coking during non-thermal plasma-assisted dry reforming of methane. 

In this report, CeO 2 and SiO 2 supported 1 wt% Ru catalysts were synthesized and studied for dry reforming of methane (DRM) by introducing non-thermal plasma (NTP) in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) fixed bed reactor. From quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) data, it is found that introducing non-thermal plasma in thermo-catalytic DRM promotes higher CH 4 and CO 2 conversion and syngas (CO + H 2 ) yield than those under thermal catalysis only conditions. According to the H 2 -TPR, CO 2 -TPD, and CO-TPD profiles, reducible CeO 2 supported Ru catalysts presented better activity compared to their irreducible SiO 2 supported Ru counterparts. For instance, the molar concentrations of CO and H 2 were 16% and 9%, respectively, for plasma-assisted thermo-catalytic DRM at 350 °C, while no apparent conversion was observed at the same temperature for thermo-catalytic DRM. Highly energetic electrons, ions, and radicals under non-equilibrium and non-thermal plasma conditions are considered to contribute to the activation of strong C–H bonds in CH 4 and C–O bonds in CO 2 , which significantly improves the CH 4 /CO 2 conversion during DRM reaction at low temperatures. At 450 °C, the 1 wt% Ru/CeO 2 nanorods sample showed the highest catalytic activity with 51% CH 4 and 37% CO 2 conversion compared to 1 wt% Ru/CeO 2 nanocubes (40% CH 4 and 30% CO 2 ). These results clearly indicate that the support shape and reducibility affect the plasma-assisted DRM reaction. This enhanced DRM activity is ascribed to the surface chemistry and defect structures of the CeO 2 nanorods support that can provide active surface facets, higher amounts of mobile oxygen and oxygen vacancy, and other surface defects.