Predictive Design Principles for Plasma-Catalysis

Abstract

Centralized production of fuels and commodity chemicals emits 1.4–2 Gt CO2 yr–1 and depends on fossil-fuel supply chains that prevent distributed deployment. Nonthermal plasmas offer a path to decentralized, electrified production by generating vibrationally excited molecules, radicals, and ions without bulk heating of gas. Despite this potential, plasma-catalysis remains difficult to design because plasma excitation, surface reaction energetics, and intermediate removal are treated separately, and activity trends do not transfer across chemistries. This perspective develops a quantitative framework connecting nonequilibrium excitation, surface binding energetics, coreactant chemistry, and surface temperature to reaction rates, selectivity, and catalyst stability. Reactions are classified into three kinetic regimes by the balance between intermediate supply and removal rates, each with distinct rate-controlling steps and deactivation modes. Design tools and principles derived from this classification are applied to four example case studies that transfer across chemistries without reparameterization and provide a basis for reactor design at scale.