Non Thermal Plasma Combustion

This proposal will address if a novel hybrid non-thermal plasma-catalytic technology can be demonstrated for the combustion of methane from exhaust gas streams from natural gas vehicles. Conventional thermally activated exhaust gas catalysts are not active for the methane oxidation below 400 oC and thus, with the exhaust gas temperatures rarely reaching this temperature in natural gas vehicles, alternative methods by which to activate the reaction feed are needed. This is reflected by the fact that incoming EU legislation which will limit the emissions of methane which presently cannot be met by existing catalyst systems. This project aims to use a combination of heterogeneous catalysts with plasma technology to enable the low temperature activation of methane for use on mobile sources using non-thermal plasma technology. This fits directly within the CenTACat objectives which aim to facilitate the engineering of new catalytic processes. It is a multidisciplinary project involving chemistry, chemical engineering and physics to understand the relationship between the engineering and science to design and commission a new process for emission control.