Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture
and utilization (CCU) plays
an important role in abating carbon emissions, mitigating global warming,
and converting CO2 as feedstock to value-added fuels and
chemicals. Herein, a proof-of-concept study of a novel integrated
process, consisting of a membrane separator (MS) followed by a nonthermal
plasma reactor (NTPR) in tandem, was presented and systematically
investigated, as an efficient platform, for potential applications
in CCU. Specifically, biogas upgrading via CH4 enrichment
was used as the model system to investigate the proposed integrated
system (using SAPO-34 zeolite membrane in a MS and Ni/NaBETA and Ni/UiO-66
catalyst in the NTPR). Upon optimization, the hybrid MS-NTPR system
showed satisfactory carbon capture efficiency (CCE) and carbon utilization
efficiency (CUE) of ca. 91.8% and 71.7%, respectively. In addition,
the integrated process also exhibited excellent stability for CCU
in upgrading synthetic biogas with a stable performance over a 40-h
longevity test. This work, for the first time, showed the feasibility
of using the novel integrated process for effective CCU.