Advanced Plasma Chemical Engineering for Gas Conversion

Our society is entering a new era of industrial process electrification, requiring to reduce the overuse of natural resources and to decrease the CO2 footprint.

In this regard, plasma technology is considered a key technology in many industrial applications, especially in the chemical sector due to its unique properties.

Among other benefits, the selectivity of plasma-initiated processes stands out as one of the primary advantages of plasma, especially at low pressure.

However, the chemistry driven by plasma at atmospheric pressure conditions in molecular gases is diverse and significantly less selective due to different energy transfer processes.The TAILCHEM project intends to provide a paradigm shift for the control of plasma-induced chemistry and uncover the fundamental insights responsible for adjusting it toward higher selectivity of chemical processes at high pressures.

The idea is based on tailoring the applied voltage waveform, resulting in a reduced electric field strength development, which drives the electron excitation mechanisms for a dedicated and selective plasma-driven gas conversion.

The project will be conducted within the context of the highly demanding field of nitrogen fixation process electrification.

Here, the selective generation of reactive nitrogen species, particularly vibrationally excited N2 in its ground state, plays a crucial role in achieving energy-efficient process performance.To achieve this goal, advanced plasma diagnostic techniques will be applied to reveal the plasma fundamentals and the electron-initiated gas-phase chemical kinetics.

Simultaneously, a unique combination of advanced experimental techniques and chemical modeling will aim to define the effect of voltage waveform tailoring on EEDF, chemistry, and the selectivity of induced processes, thus providing a quantitative characterization of the suggested strategy for the first time.