(36c) Low Temperature Reactors for Biomass Processing and Carbon Modification Using Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas

This presentation will cover advances from the Center for Plasma-Material Interactions in the design and operation of atmospheric pressure plasma devices for the purposes of chemical refining. Atmospheric plasmas driven by gliding arcs or dielectric barrier discharges and A/C currents have been under investigation as a mechanism for decomposing complex biomass, as well as the production of specialty chemicals. These reactors often suffer from poor selectivity, as well as high capital costs. More recently, scalable microwave driven atmospheric pressure plasma devices have produced reactors capable of operating further from chemical equilibrium in a highly non-thermal state. This enables reactive species densities to remain high with fewer concerns for thermal decomposition and gasification of feedstocks or products. Results will be shared on microwave atmospheric plasma device diagnostics related to reactor design as well as results discussing the decomposition of anisole and other lignin model molecules into feedstock chemicals for other processes. The production of carbon nanostructures with high thermal and electrically conductivity, and other value added materials, using these reactors will also be presented.