How Plasma Reaction Conditions Affect the Optimal Catalyst: A Microkinetic Study of Plasma-catalytic CO2 Splitting
- Rafal Tekreeti
- Oct 20
- 2 min read
By: Björn Loenders, Roel Michiels & Annemie Bogaerts
Plasma catalysis is promising for converting CO2 into value-added chemicals at mild reaction conditions. Since this technology is powered by electricity, it can use renewable energy to recycle CO2 into new feedstock chemicals for industry.
Unfortunately, plasma catalysis is still poorly understood due to the complexity of the underlying plasma-catalyst interactions. One possible interaction involves the creation of reactive species, such as radicals and molecules in the plasma, which can subsequently adsorb and react on the catalyst surface. We therefore studied the reaction kinetics that result from the interaction between plasma species and glass or transition metal (Ag, Cu, Pd, and Rh) surfaces placed in the afterglow of a low-pressure CO2 plasma.
We calculated the reaction and activation energies on these transition metals using density functional theory (DFT) and used this data as input for a microkinetic model that couples the plasma and surface chemistry. Using this microkinetic model, we studied how different catalyst surfaces and reaction conditions affect the product (O2 and CO) mole fractions throughout the reactor.
Key findings
Langmuir-Rideal (L-R) reactions likely play an essential role in the recombination of O atoms into O2.
The optimal catalyst depends strongly on the reaction conditions, e.g., Cu performs well at low to intermediate temperatures, while Ag performs well at high temperatures.
Pd was found to be detrimental for CO2 splitting under almost all conditions.
The optimal catalyst depends both on its activity for O atom recombination into O2, as well as for thermal catalytic CO oxidation to form CO2.
If the catalyst is active for thermal catalytic CO oxidation, this back-reaction should be avoided by optimizing the flow rate or the length of the catalytic bed.
How did VSC contribute to the research?
"The DFT calculations used to determine the reaction and activation energies on the transition metals are computationally demanding and therefore cannot be run on a local computer. The resources and infrastructure provided by the VSC made it possible to perform these calculations."
Read the full publication in Springer Nature here
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