Plasma-Catalytic CO₂ Hydrogenation over a Pd/ZnO Catalyst: In Situ Probing of Gas-Phase and Surface Reactions

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Plasma-catalytic CO 2 hydrogenation is a complex chemical process combining plasma-assisted gas-phase and surface reactions. Herein, we investigated CO 2 hydrogenation over Pd/ZnO and ZnO in a tubular dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor at ambient pressure. Compared to the CO 2 hydrogenation using Plasma Only or Plasma + ZnO, placing Pd/ZnO in the DBD almost doubled the conversion of CO 2 (36.7%) and CO yield (35.5%). The reaction pathways in the plasma-enhanced catalytic hydrogenation of CO 2 were investigated by in situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy using a novel integrated in situ DBD/FTIR gas cell reactor, combined with online mass spectrometry (MS) analysis, kinetic analysis, and emission spectroscopic measurements. In plasma CO 2 hydrogenation over Pd/ZnO, the hydrogenation of adsorbed surface CO 2 on Pd/ZnO is the dominant reaction route for the enhanced CO 2 conversion, which can be ascribed to the generation of a ZnO x overlay as a result of the strong metal–support interactions (SMSI) at the Pd–ZnO interface and the presence of abundant H species at the surface of Pd/ZnO; however, this important surface reaction can be limited in the Plasma + ZnO system due to a lack of active H species present on the ZnO surface and the absence of the SMSI. Instead, CO 2 splitting to CO, both in the plasma gas phase and on the surface of ZnO, is believed to make an important contribution to the conversion of CO 2 in the Plasma + ZnO system.