Carbon Dioxide Splitting in a Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma: A Combined Experimental and Computational Study

Abstract 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.