ZIF-8 incorporated non-thermal dielectric barrier discharge plasma for methane dry reforming

Abstract Greenhouse gas mitigation, which has been highlighted in sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as climate action, is crucial to reduce the adverse effects of climate change. Processes such as dry reforming of methane (DRM) have a high significance in the removal and utilization of harmful gases particularly CO 2 and CH 4 . In this work, catalytic dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) non-thermal plasma (NTP) was employed with the incorporation of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) metal-organic framework (MOF) for synthetic gas (syngas) production via DRM process. The CO 2 and CH 4 conversion, and the hydrogen (H 2 ) yield were investigated for a DBD plasma reactor packed with ZIF-8. The CO 2 :CH 4 feed ratio was also varied from 3:7 to 7:3 at a total flowrate of 50 ml/min with a ZIF-8 loading of 100mg. The input power supplied was varied from 25 watts (W) to 30W with a frequency of 7.2 kHz. Characterization was also conducted to analyze the internal morphology of the ZIF-8 catalyst. The results obtained showed that the DBD plasma reactor incorporated with ZIF-8 increased the H 2 yield by up to 59% with an increase in input power from 25W to 30W at varying CO 2 :CH 4 feed ratio between 3:7 to 7:3. FESEM image showed that the ZIF-8 particles have a rhombic dodecahedron shape and an average size of 33nm to 55nm.