Efficient Conversion of CO2 and CH4 Into Value Added Compounds Through Plasma Catalysis Process in a Dielectric Barrier Discharge Reactor

CO 2 reforming of CH4 has received great attention in the past three decades as it not only can provide a practical method for conversion of the two major greenhouse gases simultaneously for the production of value-added fuels and chemicals, but also is a promising approach to direct use of biogas, natural gas, coal bed gas and/or flared shale gas containing different amount of CO 2 and CH4. However, this process requires extreme reaction conditions with high temperatures to obtain reasonable yield of value-added chemicals, which leads to carbon deposition on the catalyst surface and therefore the deactivation of the catalyst. Non-thermal plasma has been investigated as an alternative method to the conventional chemical and/or catalytic processes. Among different non-thermal plasma techniques, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) could be a suitable source for the plasma processes for CO 2 conversion, due to due to its simple design and up-scaling capability and its successful experience in ozone generation and gas cleaning on an industrial scale. In addition, catalysts can be easily integrated into a DBD reactor to generate a synergistic effect of plasma-catalysis, improving the selectivity of the desired products. In this work, plasma-catalytic CO 2 reforming of CH4 over different catalysts has been investigated in a coaxial DBD reactor at ambient conditions. The effect of the catalysts on the plasma reforming process is evaluated in terms of the conversion of CO 2 and CH 4 , the yield and selectivity of different products, the carbon deposition on the spent catalysts as well as the stability of catalyst during a long-time reaction. The energy efficiency of the plasma-catalytic reforming process is also discussed.