One-step plasma-enabled catalytic carbon dioxide hydrogenation to higher hydrocarbons: significance of catalyst-bed configuration

Abstract

Effectively converting CO₂ into fuels and value-added chemicals remains a major challenge in catalysis, especially under mild conditions. In this study, we report a one-step plasma-enabled catalytic process for CO₂ hydrogenation to C₂⁺ hydrocarbons operated at low temperature and atmospheric pressure in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) packed-bed reactor. Plasma without catalyst produces mainly CO (over 80% selectivity), while CH₄ becomes the main product when plasma is coupled with the alumina-supported Co catalyst. Interestingly, by simply changing the catalyst-bed configuration within the plasma discharge zone, more C₂⁺ hydrocarbons are selectively produced. High C₂⁺ hydrocarbons selectivity of 46% at ca. 74% CO₂ conversion is achieved when operated at the furnace temperature of 25 °C and 10 W DBD plasma. The possible origin of C₂⁺ formation and the significance of catalyst-bed configuration are discussed.