Development and Validation of a Temperature Dependent Plasmachemical Kinetics Set for H/N/O Systems

For the past decades, energy and environmental applications of plasma technology have attained a lot of attention.1,2 The main focus in this area revolves either around developing new or enhancing existing reforming and combustion processes. To-date a lot of different atmospheric chemistry sets, thermal chemistry sets and plasma chemistry sets have been presented in literature for specific applications. Some of these chemistry sets are more widely applicable than others, and usually all of them have distinctive gaps in their applicable range of temperatures. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that underneath, many processes rely on the same chemical reactions, just with different equilibria due to the initial process conditions. For example, the reactions that control NOx mediation are the same as those involved in nitrogen fixation; those involved in NH3 production, the same as in NH3 combustion. How we look at the chemistry purely depends on our objective, do we want to form a specific product or destroy it? The underlying chemical reactions remain the same. Therefor a deeper understanding of the chemical reaction mechanisms is essential to advance our insights in all the different plasma processes under study. In this work we present our recent progress in developing and validating a temperature dependent plasmachemical kinetics set for H/N/O systems in a temperature range of 300–1300 K, using a previously developed temperature-controlled dielectric barrier discharge reactor.2 This temperature range makes it suitable to cover a wide variation of plasma sources and applications such as: both dry and humid air, nitrogen fixation (NOx and NH3), combustion and plasma catalysis studies.