Novel plasma photocatalysis process for syngas generation via dry reforming of methane

How to effectively reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases emission to alleviate global warming has been a public concern since 20th century. Hence, development of effective CO₂ and CH₄ reduction technique is a common objective worldwide. Simultaneous conversion of CO₂ and CH₄ into syngas can be a candidate to achieve the objective. Among several conversion techniques, plasma and photocatalysis are two promising techniques possessing good potentials. In this work, a spark discharge reactor and a series of perovskite-type photocatalysts are developed and combined to form hybrid plasma photocatalysis systems to evaluate the effectiveness for converting CO₂ and CH₄ to form syngas. Experimental results indicate that the spark discharge reactor packed with LFO600 photocatalyst increases the syngas generation rate from 13.0 to 18.5 mol per kilowatt-hour, corresponding to 42% of enhancement. Furthermore, characterizations of photocatalysts reveal that plasma can promote the surface structure of photocatalyst to increase the lifetime of electron-hole pairs which possibly leads to higher syngas generation rate. Additionally, the hybrid plasma photocatalysis system developed has been demonstrated with good potential to improve plasma and photocatalysis performances.