  Plasma-based CO2 conversion is a promising pathway towards greenhouse gas
recycling. In the corresponding research field, various types of plasma
reactors are applied for carbon dioxide dissociation. So far, spatial
inhomogeneities of the specific energy (SEI) distribution in plasma generators,
e.g., induced by non-uniform heating or an inhomogeneous mass distribution, are
not the focus of the investigations. In this work, the spatial inhomogeneity of
mass-specific enthalpy in the plasma jet of the inductive plasma generator IPG4
at the Institute of Space Systems (IRS) is examined. For this, the mean
mass-specific enthalpy as well as the radial distribution of the local enthalpy
are measured using plasma probes. Moreover, the influence of the determined
specific enthalpy inhomogeneity on the CO2 splitting performance is quantified.
It is shown that an inhomogeneous radial distribution of the specific energy
can significantly lower the carbon dioxide conversion, compared to a
homogeneous case. With regards to IPG4, the performance reduction is 16 %.
