Plasma-photocatalytic conversion of extraterrestrial CO2 using nanofibrous catalytic membrane reactors

This is a crucial feasibility study related to ISRU technologies (TX07.1.3) and it aims at the non-thermal plasma-assisted catalytic conversion of CO2 from extraterrestrial sources, especially from Martian atmosphere. It is hypothesized that the integration of highly porous nanofibrous catalytic membranes (NFCM) into dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactors operated at reduced pressures can provide significantly improved energy efficiency, conversion rate and selectivity of CO2 conversion processes. Initial experiments indicated ×1.8 times higher CO2 conversion at ×1.3 better energy efficiency in a low-pressure NFCM-DBD reactor (TRL1) when compared to reported atmospheric pressure plasma processes (TRL2). The overarching goal of this project is to understand low-pressure DBD plasma interaction with NFCM for CO2 conversion, and to optimize the catalyst, process and reactor design. The tasks include: (1) Investigation of the roles of pressure (0.1 Torr to atmospheric) and gas flow on CO2–based DBD plasmas and downstream products; (2) Study of gas transport in NFCM and nanofiber-based gas separation membranes (GSM) with 92–99.7 % porosity, different textural properties, and nanofiber packing strategy; (3) Analysis of the effect of NFCM design on plasma species and downstream product composition, and GSM separation efficiency; and (4) Characterization of NFCM materials structure, chemical composition and textural properties before and after the plasma exposure to obtain the important insights on NFCM’s material stability, surface reactivity and modification. The expected outcomes will create the key datasets that will help to establish the plasma−catalyst synergy at low temperatures for achieving high efficiency and manipulating the selectivity of reactions in low-pressure CO2-based DBD plasma reactors. The outcomes will help to advance plasma catalysis models, improve the machine learning approaches in the search for new catalytic systems for targeted reactions, develop efficient light-weight plasma-photocatalytic reactors and technological processes for NASA missions, and foster broader collaboration in the field.

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