DBD Plasma-ZrO2 Catalytic Decomposition of CO2 at Low Temperatures

This study describes the decomposition of CO2 using Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma technology combined with the packing materials. A self-cooling coaxial cylinder DBD reactor that packed ZrO2 pellets or glass beads with a grain size of 1-2 mm was designed to decompose CO2. The control of the temperature of the reactor was achieved via passing the condensate water through the shell of the DBD reactor. Key factors, for instance discharge length, packing materials, beads size and discharge power, were investigated to evaluate the efficiency of CO2 decomposition. The results indicated that packing materials exhibited a prominent effect on CO2 decomposition, especially in the presence of ZrO2 pellets. Most encouragingly, a maximum decomposition rate of 49.1% (2-mm particle sizes) and 52.1% (1-mm particle sizes) was obtained with packing ZrO2 pellets and a 32.3% (2-mm particle sizes) and a 33.5% (1-mm particle sizes) decomposing rate with packing glass beads. In the meantime, CO selectivity was up to 95%. Furthermore, the energy efficiency was increased from 3.3%-7% before and after packing ZrO2 pellets into the DBD reactor. It was concluded that the packing ZrO2 simultaneously increases the key values, decomposition rate and energy efficiency, by a factor of two, which makes it very promising. The improved decomposition rate and energy efficiency can be attributed mainly to the stronger electric field and electron energy and the lower reaction temperature.