Observation and rationalization of nitrogen oxidation enabled only by coupled plasma and catalyst

Hanyu Ma, Rakesh K. Sharma, Stefan Welzel, Mauritius C. M. Sanden, Mihalis N. Tsampas () and William F. Schneider ()
Additional contact information
Hanyu Ma: University of Notre Dame
Rakesh K. Sharma: Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER)
Stefan Welzel: Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER)
Mauritius C. M. Sanden: Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER)
Mihalis N. Tsampas: Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER)
William F. Schneider: University of Notre Dame

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Heterogeneous catalysts coupled with non-thermal plasmas (NTP) are known to achieve reaction yields that exceed the contributions of the individual components. Rationalization of the enhancing potential of catalysts, however, remains challenging because the background contributions from NTP or catalysts are often non-negligible. Here, we first demonstrate platinum (Pt)-catalyzed nitrogen (N2) oxidation in a radio frequency plasma afterglow at conditions at which neither catalyst nor plasma alone produces significant concentrations of nitric oxide (NO). We then develop reactor models based on reduced NTP- and surface-microkinetic mechanisms to identify the features of each that lead to the synergy between NTP and Pt. At experimental conditions, NTP and thermal catalytic NO production are suppressed by radical reactions and high N2 dissociation barrier, respectively. Pt catalyzes NTP-generated radicals and vibrationally excited molecules to produce NO. The model construction further illustrates that the optimization of productivity and energy efficiency involves tuning of plasma species, catalysts properties, and the reactor configurations to couple plasma and catalysts. These results provide unambiguous evidence of synergism between plasma and catalyst, the origins of that synergy for N2 oxidation, and a modeling approach to guide material selection and system optimization.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27912-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-27912-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27912-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().