Rational design of catalysts for non-thermal plasma (NTP) catalysis: A reflective review

Non thermal plasma catalysis (NTP-catalysis) has shown the unique characteristics to enable many challenging chemical conversions under mild conditions. However, to date catalyst design with carefully consideration of the features of NTP activation was less achieved. In this reflective review, we revisited our previous research critically to comment on the rational and irrational aspects of these studies regarding catalyst design for selected NTP-catalytic systems, that is, CO₂ methanation, dry reforming of methane with CO₂, and NH₃ synthesis. Additionally, comments on catalyst design in relation to relevant literature on the NTP-catalytic systems above, especially CO₂ methanation, were also made. Based on that we devised relevant suggestion and prospect on rational design of bespoke catalysts for NTP-catalysis, which can be beneficial to advance NTP-catalysis technologies.