Plasma Catalysis

<p>Plasma catalysis is gaining increasing interest for various gas conversion applications such as CO<sub>2</sub> conversion into value-added chemicals and fuels N<sub>2</sub> fixation for the synthesis of NH<sub>3</sub> or NO<sub>x</sub> methane conversion into higher hydrocarbons or oxygenates. It is also widely used for air pollution control (e.g. VOC  remediation). Plasma catalysis allows thermodynamically difficult reactions to proceed at ambient pressure and temperature due to activation of the gas molecules by energetic electrons created in the plasma. However plasma is very reactive but not selective and thus a catalyst is needed to improve the selectivity.</p><p>In spite of the growing interest in plasma catalysis the underlying mechanisms of the (possible) synergy between plasma and catalyst are not yet fully understood. Indeed plasma catalysis is quite complicated as the plasma will affect the catalyst and vice versa. Moreover due to the reactive plasma environment the most suitable catalysts will probably be different from thermal catalysts. More research is needed to better understand the plasma–catalyst interactions in order to further improve the applications.</p>