Recent progresses of plasma-catalytic CH4/CO2 conversion to oxygenates: A short review

Abstract

Plasma catalysis is a promising alternative for the direct conversion of CO₂ and CH₄ to high-value oxygenates at mild conditions. However, this direct process suffers from low selectivity and high diversity of the liquid oxygenates, generally consisting of C_1-4 alcohols, C_1-2 acids, C_1-2 aldehydes and acetone, and little is known yet about how to selectively produce one target oxygenate. The trial-and-error approach still dominates the current researches, especially in screening effective catalysts. This short review highlights researches in the last two years, revealing the crucial factors that affect oxygenates formation, and then proposing some feasible strategies to improve oxygenates formation in plasma-catalytic CO₂/CH₄ conversion.