Plasma Catalysis

Abstract

Catalysis is a mature and important research field that was first reported in 1823 by Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (Kauffman, 1999). It states that “finely divided platinum powder causes hydrogen gas to react with oxygen gas by mere contact to water whereby the platinum itself is not altered,” a process that in 1835 was termed “catalysis” by Jöns Jacob Berzelius. Today, some 80% of all industrial processes are related to catalysis, which suggests a value for catalytic products of approximate $20 trillion per year around the world (Neyts et al., 2015). As a broad concept, catalysis is the acceleration or facilitation of a reaction through the introduction of a substance that is not consumed in the reaction itself (the catalyst). While there are many specific chemical mechanisms by which catalysis takes place, the general result is a reduction in the energy required to initiate the reaction. As energy requirements can often be translated linearly into financial costs, the search of new or better catalysts for industrial processes is a constant effort. Further, catalysts can often reduce harmful or wasteful byproducts of reactions and thus provide additional benefits in a society concerned about global climate change. According to the European Roadmap on Science and Technology of Catalysis, improvements to chemical and petroleum processes using new and improved catalysts could reduce energy usage for production by an estimated 20–40% (Perathoner et al., 2017). Due to reactivity, low-temperature operation, and far-from-equilibrium state, CAP can be used for many complex applications, including catalysis. Thus, plasma catalysis is an emerging research field, which including physics, chemistry, catalysis, nanotechnology, and others.