Author response

EES-05-0100: Conversion of CO2 by Gliding Arc Plasma

Submitted to the Environmental Engineering Science

Reviewer 1
1. Thank you very much for the suggestions from reviewer 1, especially for the English
corrections and some questions on it. In this revised manuscript, we changed and revised
some parts to make it clear. We put yellow mark on the sentences that previously became a
question or unclear. I hope this revised manuscript will match with what the reviewer 1
suggested.
2. Regarding the suggestion of reviewer 1 to add more information about ‘gliding arc plasma’,
we added the basic explanation in introduction section of our revised manuscript. Gliding
arc plasma is a combination between thermal and non-thermal plasma. It is located in the
transition region between high current and low current plasma. Thermal plasma is very
powerful instrument to decompose a strong-bond molecule, such as CO 2, but the
installation and operation costs are very expensive. On the other hand, non thermal
plasmas, such as dielectric barrier discharge (DCD), corona, are very cheap but the ability
to convert or decompose CO2 is very low. So, it is clear that the purpose of using gliding arc
plasma is to achieve the good/advance points of thermal plasma with low price cost.
3. Regarding reviewer question on process efficiency, we put additional information of process
efficiency or energy efficiency. Simple calculation was made by calculating the number of
converted CO per total supplied energy. In the revised manuscript, we also add additional
graph to shows the comparison between gliding arc plasma and other plasmas, such as
DBD, corona and radio frequency (RF). Gliding arc has a better performance. The
installation cost is almost same with those non-thermal plasmas because we used the same
type of power supply that usually used in non thermal plasma process.
4. In case of reviewer 1 question on the best condition of process in a gliding arc plasma, we
add some more sentences in the conclusion section. Low activation-energy molecules or
compounds, such as: N2, Ar, and He, can be the best gas mixer for this process. However,
although Ar and He are well-known as low activation gases, they are not much and the price
is quite expensive. So, it will not give any economical advantages for the real scale process.
Ar and He are also inert gas and they will not so much give any ‘interaction’ on the plasma
process, instead of excited molecules reaction.
5. In term of graph, we did not put the statistical term, such as error bar because, in our
opinion, the amount of the data is less and statistically not enough. It does not mean that
this data is un-trust-able. In every point of experiments, we did a reproducible experiment at
 least 2 times, for the example in Figure 5. Average calculation was done for the other
graphs.

Reviewer 2
1. Thank you for reviewer 2 comments for our manuscript. In the revised manuscript, we made
a lot of corrections, especially in English composition. I hope it will meet the requirement to
be a publishable scientific paper.
2. Regarding the reaction equations, we checked all of those and we are sure that the
component and mass balance is correct now.
3. Thank you very much for a suggestion to add some information about process efficiency
comparison. In our revised manuscript, we put a graph in the results and discussion section.
In this graph, we compared our process with other plasma processes, such as DBD,
corona, and radio frequency (RF).
4. Regarding the question on supplied power, yes, we used the same power and frequency
with the electrical waveform of alternating current (AC). We kept the frequency at 20 kHz.
Calculation of power is done by multiplying the root mean square (RMS) values of voltage
and current, captured by oscilloscope.
In term of carbon production, we can say here that carbon was produced during
experiments. However, we have a difficulty to measure it. In plasma process (literatures
review), there are so many types of solid carbon which has different characteristic. The
most difficult type is the carbon that attached in the reactor wall or electrodes. Caused our
reactor is quite big (semi pilot scale), weight measurement before-after experiment method
is difficult to be applied and it can create much error. However, the O balance calculation
shows that the captured products by gas chromatography (GC) are almost 100%. So, we
can make assumption here that remaining un-counted C will go to C solid.