Visal Veng, Saleh Ahmat Ibrahim, Benard Tabu, Ephraim Simasiku, Joshua Landis, John Hunter Mack, Fanglin Che, Juan Pablo Trelles
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The synthesis of ammonia using non-thermal plasma can present distinct advantages for distributed stand-alone operations powered by electricity from renewable energy sources. We present the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen using a membrane Dielectric-Barrier Discharge (mDBD) reactor integrated with metal catalyst. The reactor used a porous alumina membrane as a dielectric-barrier and as a distributor of H2, a configuration that leads to greater NH3 production than using pre-mixed N2 and H2. The membrane is surrounded by catalyst powder held by glass wool as porous dielectric support filling the plasma region. We evaluated nickel, cobalt, and bimetallic nickel-cobalt as catalysts due to their predicted lower activation energy under non-thermal plasma conditions as determined through Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. The catalysts were loaded at 5% by weight on alumina powder. The performance of the catalytic mDBD reactor was assessed using electrical, optical, and spectroscopic diagnostics, as well as Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy. Experimental results showed that the glass wool support suppresses microdischarges, generally leading to greater ammonia production. The Ni-Co/Al2O3 catalyst produced the greatest energy yield of 0.87 g-NH3/kWh, compared to a maximum of 0.82 and 0.78 g-NH3/kWh for the Co/Al2O3 and Ni/Al2O3 catalysts, respectively. Although the differences in performance among the three metal catalysts are small, they corroborate the predictions by DFT. Moreover, the maximum energy yield for bare Al2O3 (no metal catalyst) with dielectric support was 0.38 g-NH3/kWh, for mDBD operation with no metal catalyst or dielectric support was 0.28 g-NH3/kWh, and for standard DBD operation (no membrane, dielectric support, or catalyst) was 0.08 g-NH3/kWh, i.e., 2.1, 3.1, and 11 times lower, respectively, than the maximum energy yield for the Ni-Co/Al2O3 catalyst with dielectric support. The study shows that the integration of dielectric membrane and metal catalyst is an effective approach at enhancing ammonia production in a DBD reactor.
期刊介绍:
Publishing original papers on fundamental and applied research in plasma chemistry and plasma processing, the scope of this journal includes processing plasmas ranging from non-thermal plasmas to thermal plasmas, and fundamental plasma studies as well as studies of specific plasma applications. Such applications include but are not limited to plasma catalysis, environmental processing including treatment of liquids and gases, biological applications of plasmas including plasma medicine and agriculture, surface modification and deposition, powder and nanostructure synthesis, energy applications including plasma combustion and reforming, resource recovery, coupling of plasmas and electrochemistry, and plasma etching. Studies of chemical kinetics in plasmas, and the interactions of plasmas with surfaces are also solicited. It is essential that submissions include substantial consideration of the role of the plasma, for example, the relevant plasma chemistry, plasma physics or plasma–surface interactions; manuscripts that consider solely the properties of materials or substances processed using a plasma are not within the journal’s scope.