Description
A sustainable society requires the recycling of greenhouse gases into useful products (e.g. CO2 into CO and O2). For this conversion process, low-temperature plasmas are essential. These are electrically-powered reactive gases with ideal conditions for gaseous conversion. Atmospheric pressure plasmas in particular have great potential for conversion of CO2, due to the higher throughput at higher pressures. Nevertheless, atmospheric pressure plasmas are usually filamentary, transient and irreproducible, which renders them difficult to study and optimize. The recent discovery of CO2 homogeneous Dielectric Barrier Discharges (DBDs) provides an opportunity to study fundamental processes for CO2 plasma conversion at atmospheric pressure.
The physics of low-temperature plasmas in homogeneous DBDs comes across different temporal and spatial scales and involves the interplay between different branches of physics: electromagnetism, fluid mechanics, statistical physics and gaseous and surface reactivities. In particular, homogeneous DBDs include a time-dependent applied voltage, space-charge sheaths and the charging of dielectric surfaces. An accurate description of these media that allows predictive modelling and reactor optimization requires the development of multidimensional time-dependent numerical models. The goal of this work is to engage in multidimensional continuum simulations of low-temperature plasmas and their interaction with dielectric surfaces.
The project will be supervised by plasma modelers, within the cadre of wider projects developing technologies for sustainable gaseous conversion, such as Project SYAMESE - Synergy between plasmas and separation membranes for sustainable CO2 conversion, involving plasma reactor experiments.
| Field of Research/Work | Plasma and Solar Physics, Accelerators and Beams |
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