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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kui Zhang
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2026.Industrialization has continuously increased global CO2 emissions, posing significant environmental and health risks. Non-thermal plasma (NTP) provides a promising route for direct CO2 conversion due to its controllability and minimal by-products. In this work, SnO2, an n-type wide-bandgap semiconductor synthesized via a precipitation–hydrothermal method, was employed as a catalyst in dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma for CO2 conversion. Structural and electronic characterization revealed that plasma excitation narrows the bandgap (from 3.45 to 3.39 eV) and increases oxygen vacancy concentrations, enhancing electron transport and creating defect-mediated energy levels. These modifications facilitate CO2 adsorption and activation, resulting in a CO2 conversion of 27.1% and a 41.8% improvement in energy efficiency compared with plasma alone. A synergistic mechanism involving plasma discharge, surface vacancies, and defect states is proposed. This study demonstrates a defect-engineering strategy for n-type semiconductor-plasma systems, providing mechanistic insights and a pathway toward scalable CO2 utilization.
Author(s): Li S, Ma Z, Wang Y, Zhou Z, Yang D, Wu H, Wang S, Ma Y, Chen Q, ZhouHuang J, Yu Q, Zhang K, Zhu H, Jia S, Du K, Ren P, Feng Q, Zeng L, Tan R, Feng Z
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Year: 2026
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 04/08/2026
Acceptance date: 04/08/2026
Date deposited: 25/08/2026
ISSN (print): 2050-7488
ISSN (electronic): 2050-7496
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
URL: https://doi.org/10.1039/d6ta05056e
DOI: 10.1039/d6ta05056e
Data Access Statement: The data supporting this article have been included as part of the supplementary information (SI). Supplementary informa tion is available. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d6ta05056e
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