Decarbonization via plasma-enabled CO₂ conversion: Prospects and challenges

The increasing levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere are significantly worsening the greenhouse effect, triggering a series of serious environmental problems. There is an urgency to develop and deploy decarbonization pathways to alleviate the situation. Electricity-driven plasma technology operates under mild conditions with high energy efficiency and can be coupled with renewable energy to realize the conversion of CO₂ to fuels and chemicals, offering an alternative solution to transform and store the renewable energy into energy carriers. This perspective describes the challenges and prospects of plasma-enabled CO₂ conversion processes in three conversion pathways (splitting, reforming and hydrogenation) and their techno-economic analysis. We highlight the key elements of integrating renewable electricity with the power source to generate and sustain plasma to reduce carbon emission. Unlocking the three conversion pathways has a substantial potential for rapid and deep decarbonization of the chemical industry, accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy and facilitating improvements in environmental sustainability.