Dissociation of CO₂ in non-thermal atmospheric pressure planer dielectric barrier discharge

Abstract

Increasing concentration of carbon dioxide [Formula: see text] in Earth’s atmosphere due to burning of fossil fuels is a major cause of global warming. To avoid catastrophic consequences of increasing global temperature, the conversion of [Formula: see text] is vital. Incidentally, synergistic effect of [Formula: see text] photocatalyst on [Formula: see text] dissociation in atmospheric pressure planer dielectric barrier discharge is investigated. Maximum dissociation fraction of 37% is achieved in undiluted [Formula: see text], 49% in [Formula: see text] and 44% in [Formula: see text] at 10[Formula: see text]kV applied voltage with 10[Formula: see text]kHz fixed frequency and 200[Formula: see text]SCCM total flow rate. Transitions from the Angstrom band of CO at 483.5[Formula: see text]nm and the 2nd positive system of [Formula: see text] at 380.4[Formula: see text]nm are used for molecular actinometry measurements. Rotational temperature is calculated, by employing the Boltzmann plot technique, using rotational spectra of Q-branch of CO (0-1) Angstrom band. To avoid inconsistency in rotational temperature measurement, rotational spectra of 1st negative system of [Formula: see text] (0-0) band are also used. For this, synthetic spectra have been fitted over experimentally recorded spectra of 1st negative system of [Formula: see text] (0-0) band using LIFEBASE software. Electrical characterization of the discharge suggests that power added to the plasma increased from 1.92 to 6.13[Formula: see text]W in undiluted [Formula: see text], from 1.81 to 6.4[Formula: see text]W in [Formula: see text] and from 1.71 to 7[Formula: see text]W in case of [Formula: see text] mixture plasma. A higher dissociation fraction is found in the case of [Formula: see text] mixture.