A study of microwave plasma-assisted CO2 conversion by plasma catalysis

Climate change and global warming caused by the increasing greenhouse gases emissions (such as CO2) in the atmosphere recently attract the attention of the scientific community. These large emissions have been correlated to the Global Warming effect which has many consequences across the globe, incl...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chen, Guoxing
Other Authors: Delplancke, Marie-Paule, Snyders, Rony, Godet, Stéphane, Olivier, Marie-Georges, Dubois, Frank, Thomas, Diane, Leys, Christophe
Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
Language:English
Published: Universite Libre de Bruxelles 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/255888
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/255888/5/contratGC.pdf
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/255888/4/Tableofcontent.docx
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/255888/3/Fulltextforthewholework.pdf
Description
Summary:Climate change and global warming caused by the increasing greenhouse gases emissions (such as CO2) in the atmosphere recently attract the attention of the scientific community. These large emissions have been correlated to the Global Warming effect which has many consequences across the globe, including glacial retraction, ocean acidification and increased severity of weather events. With green technologies still in the infancy stage, it can be expected that CO2 emissions will stay this way for a long time to come. It is necessary to find an alternative way to get rid of the resulting environmentally harmful emissions. A promising solution is the use of CO2-free electrical energy produced, for example, by renewable or nuclear sources, for dissociation of CO2 or other greenhouse gases, followed by their conversion into easily storable fuels. In this context, the CO2 re-utilization to synthesize syngas, fuels or chemical compounds as well as pure CO2 dissociation into CO and O2, is of a special interest. Among the different methods to convert CO2 into added-value products (thermolysis, thermochemical cycles, electrolysis, photocatalysis, etc), the discharges sustained by microwave radiation combining high electron and low gas temperature have already demonstrated huge potential for plasma-assisted CO2 conversion. The present research work is targeted to the systematic investigation of the microwave-assisted conversion of various CO2-based gas mixtures being especially focused on plasma catalysis. The different physical effects affecting the efficiency of plasma catalysis are considered, for a better understanding of the synergistic effects between plasma and catalyst. The characterization of microwave discharges is performed by various plasma diagnostics methods, including optical spectroscopy and gas chromatography. In addition, the catalysts have been characterized by the state of art material characterization techniques, such as Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, etc. Such a combined ...