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Plasma Catalysis: A Promising Avenue for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
CEE 595AG - Environmental Engineering & Science
Location
2311 NCEL - Yeh Center
Date
Feb 7, 2025   10:00 - 10:50 am  
Speaker
Moo Been Chang, Chair Professor, Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan
Contact
Environmental Engineering & Science
E-Mail
hmhorow@illinois.edu
Views
2
Originating Calendar
CEE Seminars and Conferences

Plasma catalysis offers a compelling solution for mitigating the detrimental environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, including climate change and public health risks. GHGs like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and perfluorocarbons contribute to global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Plasma catalysis leverages the unique synergy between non-thermal plasma and catalytic processes to efficiently convert these harmful gases into benign substances or valuable chemicals. This synergy enables thermodynamically unfavorable reactions to occur at lower temperatures, significantly improving energy efficiency. Careful catalyst selection is crucial in this technology as it dictates reaction pathways and product selectivity. While plasma catalysis has advantages like rapid start up and potential integration with renewable energy sources, challenges remain. These include maintaining catalyst stability under plasma conditions and the need for optimizing process parameters. This lecture will delve into scaling up of a plasma catalysis system and critical aspects of GHG mitigation through plasma catalysis such as: exploring catalyst formulation, reaction mechanisms, byproduct selectivity, and addressing existing challenges and future research directions. A key focus for future research should be enhancing catalyst durability, elucidating reaction mechanisms within plasma environments, and developing hybrid systems that integrate plasma with other technologies. By addressing these challenges, plasma catalysis could play a vital role in global efforts to reduce GHG emissions and combat climate change effectively.

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