Dear Colleagues,

Energy transition and the use of alternative fuels, such as green hydrogen and green methane, is an important challenge nowadays. These issues are directly linked to the problem of global CO₂ emissions. Recent European policy trends have focused on the possibility of utilizing carbon dioxide in chemical processes. The available installations that use CO₂  produced as a waste gas are already being demonstrated. Nowadays, the most important challenge is to expand these installations up to larger scales to find economic and sustainable solutions.

One of these possible solutions is chemical reactions in which carbon dioxide can be used as a feedstock, such as methanation, methanolation, CO₂ to chemicals, or the reforming of methane using CO₂ (DRM). However, most of these processes are catalytic, meaning that they take place at high temperatures or pressures. Thus, the use of non-thermal plasmas in such processes can lead to a reduction in the energy used, making the process easier to carry out. Such reactions can be used for so-called energy storage.

Plasma–catalytic-assisted processes are very complex, both at the level of gas phase (or liquid phase) interactions and at the level of solid–gas phase (liquid phase) interactions. Key to these interactions are the activation processes of CO₂ molecules, as well as the reaction centers of the catalyst, which in a traditional reaction are created under high temperatures.

In the pioneering Special Issue, all of these aspects related to the fields of physics, material science, catalysis, chemistry and the chemical engineering of plasma–catalytic processes will be presented.

Prof. Dr. Patrick Da Costa
Prof. Dr. Annemie Bogaerts
Dr. Vasco Guerra
Prof. Dr. Monika Motak
Dr. Bogdan Samojeden
Guest Editors

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• plasma
• reduction in CO₂ emissions
• catalysis
• chemical engineering
• methanol
• H₂
• CH₄