Carbon dioxide (CO2) decomposition has drawn significant interest over the years due to its global warming potential. A packed bed dielectric barrier discharge reactor has been designed and tested for the conversion of CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO). The discharge volume was filled with different packing materials (glass beads, alumina, anatase titania, ceria) so as to understand the influence of dielectric constant, porosity and ultraviolet light. Typical results indicated that the packed bed DBD promotes CO2 conversion into CO and oxygen and CeO2 packing showed the highest conversion (10.6%) at a specific input energy of 4.8 J mL-1. The best performance of CeO2 may be due to oxygen vacant sites, which stabilize the atomic oxygen formed in the reaction and thereby promoting CO2 conversion. During the present study, CO2 decomposition has been achieved at ∼0.139 eV per molecule. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.