Synergistic effect of dielectric barrier discharge plasma and Mn catalyst on CO2 reforming of toluene

Abstract The present contribution experimentally examined the combined effect of non-thermal plasma and Mn-based composite catalysts on CO2 reforming of toluene as a model compound of tars in synthesis gas production from biomass gasification and pyrolysis. The experimentation was performed using a fixed-bed reactor packed with a catalyst and incorporating a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) to generate non-thermal plasma in-situ. The effects of specific energy density (SED), catalyst loading, and CO2 concentration on the yields of H2, CO and light hydrocarbons (such as CH4, C2H6 and C2H2) were systematically studied and a potential synergistic mechanism for the plasma catalytic reforming of toluene by CO2 is proposed. The experimental results indicate that Mn-based catalysts perform similarly well in the plasma catalytic reforming of toluene by CO2 as has previously been observed in the literature using O2 as the reforming agent.