Abstract
Valorizing CO(2) into chemical building blocks via efficient electrified processes could significantly decrease carbon emissions. In this work, a device that allows generation of tunable micro-plasma modes (arc, pulsed, pulsed arc) on a chip for efficient, low-power and renewable chemical production is presented. This concept is first demonstrated by using nanosecond repetitively pulsed (NRP) micro-plasma for pure CO(2) splitting and show that the pulse micro-plasma maintains a peak energy efficiency of 29% across 0.2%-21% CO(2) conversion at plasma powers below 1 W-nearly an order of magnitude lower power than other systems with comparable performance. The kinetic studies feature pulsed arc mode as a novel way to improve CO(2) conversion, where CO production tripled compared to pulsed mode with negligible energy efficiency losses. In addition, these devices are also capable of performing dry reforming of methane (DRM) with a maximum energy efficiency of 33% and a syngas ratio close 1. The fact that these devices are low-power, versatile and built as chips enables scalable, sustainable and decentralized CO(2) conversion.