From thermal catalysis to plasma catalysis: a review of surface processes and their characterizations

Abstract

The use of atmospheric pressure plasma to enhance catalytic chemical reactions involves complex surface processes induced by the interactions of plasma-generated fluxes with catalyst surfaces. Industrial implementation of plasma catalysis necessitates optimizing the design and realization of plasma catalytic reactors that enable chemical reactions that are superior to conventional thermal catalysis approaches. This requires the fundamental understanding of essential plasma-surface interaction mechanisms of plasma catalysis from the aspect of experimental investigation and theoretical analysis or computational modeling. In addition, experimental results are essential to validate the relative theoretical models and hypotheses of plasma catalysis that was rarely understood so far, compared to conventional thermal catalysis. This overview focuses on two important application areas, nitrogen fixation and methane reforming, and presents a comparison of important aspects of the state of knowledge of these applications when performed using either plasma-catalysis or conventional thermal catalysis. We discuss the potential advantage of plasma catalysis over thermal catalysis from the aspects of plasma induced synergistic effect and in situ catalyst regeneration. In-situ/operando surface characterization of catalysts in plasma catalytic reactors is a significant challenge since the high pressure of realistic plasma catalysis systems preclude the application of many standard surface characterization techniques that operate in a low-pressure environment. We present a review of the status of experimental approaches to probe gas-surface interaction mechanisms of plasma catalysis, including an appraisal of demonstrated approaches for integrating surface diagnostic tools into plasma catalytic reactors. Surface characterizations of catalysts in plasma catalytic reactors demand thorough instrumentations of choices of plasma sources, catalyst forms, and the relative characterization tools. We conclude this review by presenting open questions on self-organized patterns in plasma catalysis.