XXIV Symposium on Atomic, Cluster and Surface Physics – 28^th January – 2^nd February 2024, Andalo – TN, Italy

The SASP (Symposium on Atomic, Cluster and Surface Physics) 2024 returns to Italy after the 2000 edition held in Folgaria (Trento)!

This international Symposium is one in a continuing biennial series of conferences which seeks to promote the growth of scientific knowledge and effective exchange of information among scientists in the field of atomic, molecular, cluster, plasma, and surface physics and related areas, including applied topics.

The Symposium deals, in particular, with collisional interactions involving different types of collision partners, i.e., ions, electrons, photons, atoms, molecules, nano-particles, and surfaces.

The XXIV SASP will be held in Andalo (Trento), Italy.

Further information can be found at the conference website: https://event.unitn.it/sasp2024/

We look forward to welcoming you in Andalo!

We propose and demonstrate an integrated electrified plasma-assisted chemical looping (PACL) process
that yields supra-equilibrium CO₂ conversions unattainable with conventional catalysis at temperatures ≪3000 K. CO₂ is first dissociated inside plasma into CO/O at supra-equilibrium conversions (up to 60%) at a bulk gas temperature of 773 K and a 403 kJ/mol energy cost. Supra-equilibrium CO₂ conversions
(29% on average) are achieved at the reactor outlet by placing a nanostructured CeO₂ /Fe₂O₃ oxygen scavenger, prereduced by H₂ plasma, downstream of the plasma zone, to capture produced oxygen species and suppress CO/O recombination. Without plasma-material synergy, such an average CO₂ conversion can only be attained at temperatures ≥ 2775 K, according to chemical equilibrium calculations. This concept of plasma-assisted chemical looping allows reaching 3-fold higher conversions than state-of-the-art plasma technologies.

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Delikonstantis E., Scapinello M., Singh V., Poelman H., Montesano C., Martini L.M., Tosi P., Marin G. B., Van Geem K. M., Galvita V. V. and Georgios D. Exceeding Equilibrium CO₂ Conversion by Plasma-Assisted Chemical Looping. ACS Energy Letters 7, 6, 1896–1902 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.2c00632

Nanosecond repetitively pulsed discharges at atmospheric pressure have shown comparatively high performances for CO₂ reduction to CO and O₂. However, mechanisms of CO₂ dissociation in these transNanosecond repetitively pulsed discharges at atmospheric pressure have shown comparatively high performances for CO₂ reduction to CO and O₂. However, mechanisms of CO₂ dissociation in these transient discharges are still a matter of discussion. In the present work, we have used time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy to investigate the CO₂ discharge progression from the initial breakdown event to the final post-discharge. We discover a complex temporal structure of the spectrally resolved light, which gives some insights into the underlying electron and chemical kinetics. We could estimate the electron density using the Stark broadening of O and C lines and the electron temperature with C+ and C++ lines. By adding a small amount of nitrogen, we could also monitor the time evolution of the gas temperature using the Second Positive System bands of N₂. We conclude that the discharge evolves from a breakdown to a spark phase, the latter being characterised by a peak electron density around 10¹⁸ cm⁻³ and a mean electron temperature around 2 eV. The spark phase offers beneficial conditions for vibrationally enhanced dissociation, which might explain the high CO₂ conversion observed in these plasma discharges.

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M. Ceppelli*, T.P.W. Salden*, L. M. Martini, G. Dilecce and P. Tosi, Time-Resolved Optical Emission Spectroscopy in CO2 Nanosecond Pulsed Discharges, Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6595/ac2411 (2021).

*M. Ceppelli and T. P. W. Salden have equally contributed to the paper.