Cold plasma converts biogas into long-chain hydrocarbon feedstocks

For the first time, scientists have transformed the carbon in biogas into long-chain hydrocarbons using a cold plasma. ‘The beauty of this is strategy is converting waste greenhouse gases, such as biogas or landfill gas, into value-added compounds,’ explains Tianqi Zhang at the University of Sydney and one of the study’s scientists.

Biogas, a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane, is produced when microorganisms decompose organic matter in the absence of oxygen. Although cold plasmas have been used to recycle carbon from biogas in the past, it was restricted to producing simple hydrocarbons such as formic acid, ethanol, isopropanol and acetic acid.