Plasma assisted decomposition and reforming of greenhouse gases: A review of current status and emerging trends

Greenhouse gases are the major cause of global warming and it leads to climate changes. It poses a major threat to the development of the global community and human civilization. Agriculture, fossil fuel consumption by the industries and automobiles are the major source of greenhouse gases. Effective control or reduction of the greenhouse gases is a global challenge. The major conventional methods that are used for decomposition of the greenhouse gases are absorption, photocatalysis, electrochemical and thermochemical methods. However, the conventional methods have some drawbacks such as high capital cost, low selectivity, conversion and energy efficiency. To overcome this, several innovative approaches are being developed. Plasma technology is one of the approaches which has been intensively studied by various scientific communities. Plasma is a partially ionized gas that contains energetic electrons, ions, active radicals and neutral particles (atoms, molecules) in the ground and excited states. It can produce wide range of temperatures (300–30000 K) and electron number density ranges (up to 1026). Plasma assisted decomposition/reforming provides a complete or partial solution to overcome the limitations of the conventional methods. This review presents the current state of the art the plasma assisted decomposition and reforming of the greenhouse gases.