USRA Plasma Catalysis

This research investigates whether high temperature thermal plasma can break carbon dioxide (CO2) down into carbon monoxide (CO), a gas that carries real value of its own as a syngas feedstock. At this stage the win is simply getting that conversion to happen, since any product other than CO2 counts as a success, and steering the chemistry toward higher value products beyond CO is a longer-term stretch.

I am carrying out the work through an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award at UNB, under the supervision of Dr. Felipe Chibante. My role runs the length of the experimental program, from designing the plasma reactor and specifying its monitoring and instrumentation, to writing the standard operating procedures, running the testing program, and analyzing the resulting data.

The larger motivation is CO2 utilization, turning a waste stream into a feedstock. The CO that comes out can be built into fuels and chemicals downstream, and when the conversion runs on renewable electricity, the whole cycle can approach carbon neutrality, or even go carbon negative.