Thomas Godfroid

By Tiago Silva, Nikolay Britun, Thomas Godfroid and Rony Snyders

Part of the book: Plasma Science and Technology

By Nikolay Britun, Guoxing Chen, Tiago Silva, Thomas Godfroid, Marie‐ Paule Delplancke‐Ogletree and Rony Snyders

Scientific interest to the plasma-assisted greenhouse gas conversion continuously increases nowadays, as a part of the global Green Energy activities. Among the plasma sources suitable for conversion of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, the non-equilibrium (low-temperature) discharges where the electron temperature is considerably higher than the gas temperature, represent special interest. The flowing gas discharges sustained by microwave radiation are proven to be especially suitable for molecular gas conversion due to high degree of non-equilibrium they possess. In this Chapter the optimization of CO2 conversion efficiency in microwave discharges working in pulsed regime is considered. The pulsed energy delivery represents new approach for maximization of CO2 conversion solely based on the discharge “fine-tuning”, i. e. without the additional power expenses. In our work several discharge parameters along the gas flow direction in the discharge have been studied using various diagnostic techniques, such as optical actinometry, laser-induced fluorescence, and gas chromatography. The results show that CO2 conversion efficiency can be essentially increased solely based on the plasma pulse frequency tuning. The obtained results are explained by the relation between the plasma pulse parameters and the characteristic time of the relevant energy transfer processes in the discharge.

Part of the book: Green Chemical

By Guoxing Chen, Nikolay Britun, Thomas Godfroid, Marie‐Paule Delplancke‐Ogletree and Rony Snyders

Climate change and global warming caused by the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases (such as CO2) recently attract attention of the scientific community. The combination of plasma and catalysis is of great interest for turning plasma chemistry in applications related to pollution and energy issues. In this chapter, our recent research efforts related to optimization of the conversion of CO2 and CO2/H2O mixtures in a pulsed surface‐wave sustained microwave discharge are presented. The effects of different plasma operating conditions and catalyst preparation methods on the CO2 conversion and its energy efficiency are discussed. It is demonstrated that, compared to the plasma‐only case, the CO2 conversion and energy efficiency can be enhanced by a factor of ∼2.1 by selecting the appropriate conditions. The catalyst characterization shows that Ar plasma treatment results in a higher density of oxygen vacancies and a comparatively uniform distribution of NiO on the TiO2 surface, which strongly influence CO2 conversion and energy efficiencies of this process. The dissociative electron attachment of CO2 at the catalyst surface enhanced by the oxygen vacancies and plasma electrons may explain the increase of conversion and energy efficiencies in this case. A mechanism of plasma‐catalytic conversion of CO2 at the catalyst surface in CO2 and CO2/H2O mixtures is proposed.

Part of the book: Green Chemical

By Guoxing Chen, Ling Wang, Thomas Godfroid and Rony Snyders

Production of chemicals and fuels based on CO2 conversion is attracting a special attention nowadays, especially regarding the fast depletion of fossil resources and increase of CO2 emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere. Recently, plasma technology has gained increasing interest as a non-equilibrium medium suitable for CO2 conversion, which provides a promising alternative to the conventional pathway for greenhouse gas conversion. The combination of plasma and catalysis is of great interest for turning plasma chemistry in applications related to pollution and energy issues. In this chapter a short review of the current progress in plasma-assisted catalytic processes for CO2 reduction is given. The most widely used discharges for CO2 conversion are presented and briefly discussed, illustrating how to achieve a better energy and conversion efficiency. The chapter includes the recent status and advances of the most promising candidates (plasma catalysis) to obtain efficient CO2 conversion, along with the future outlook of this plasma-assisted catalytic process for further improvement.

Part of the book: Plasma Chemistry and Gas Conversion