Influence of oxygen on the ro-vibrational kinetics of a non-equilibrium discharge in CO₂–O₂ mixtures

Abstract Storing excess renewable energy in hydrocarbons produced from CO 2 potentially solves the intermittency issue of sources a green manner. The required reduction to can be efficiently accomplished with non-equilibrium plasma conversion. On an industrial scale, effects impurities on must taken into account. During this study, oxygen are considered, as impurity O is both product reaction and abundant air. In paper, influence addition ro-vibrational kinetics pulsed DC glow discharge at 2.5–6.0 Torr—serving model system—is studied situ quantum cascade laser infrared absorption spectroscopy. temporal evolution temperatures measured, well conversion CO. Trends temperature evolutions when increasing flow rate 7.4 30.0 sccm, varying pressure, admixture up 90% increments 10% utilised determine underlying kinetic processes. Our results show that any decrease caused by cannot attributed induced change vibrational kinetics, since asymmetric stretch mode —which associated dissociation via excitation—is not quenched. Measured changes trends explained species-dependent intra- intermolecular collisional transfer