Processes and Industrial Deployment of Plasma Based CO2 Conversion

Plasma-assisted CO2 valorization provides an electrified route for carbon capture and utilization (CCU) at low gas temperatures. However, operating at atmospheric pressure imposes severe kinetic constraints. Conventional single-frequency dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) operate reliably at ambient pressure, but remain limited to 5%–15% conversion and 2%–8% efficiency due to stochastic filamentation, elevated reduced electric fields (E/N>200" Td" ), and gas bypass. Introducing dielectric and catalytic packing (ZrO2, BaTiO3,TiO2) concentrates contact-point electric fields, boosting performance to 15%–30% conversion and 6%–12% efficiency. Conversely, warm microwave (MW) and gliding arc (GA) discharges achieve 30%–50% efficiency via vibrational ladder-climbing, yet demand vacuum infrastructure or high gas throughput to suppress vibrational–translational (V–T) relaxation. To bridge this operational divide, this thesis synthesizes non-thermal and warm plasma kinetics using BOLSIG+ swarm calculations, 0D global networks, multi-fluid simulations, and industrial scaling metrics. Adapting diffuse glow dynamics from dual-frequency atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs), this work proposes a novel Dual-Frequency Catalytic Packed-Bed DBD Reactor under Atmospheric Pressure. By coupling a low-frequency (LF, ∼17" kHz" ) high-voltage pulse with a continuous radio-frequency (RF, 27 MHz) field across a catalytic packed bed, electron density (n_e) is decoupled from electron temperature (T_e). RF pre-ionization broadens discharge channels and moderates the reduced electric field into the optimal 50–100 Td or max 200Td window for vibrational excitation, while LF pulses drive intense local polarization and charge deposition. Heterogeneous dissociative chemisorption lowers the activation threshold, targeting projected benchmarks of 25%–45% conversion and 12%–25% efficiency competing MW.