The aim of this work is to understand the effect of a packed bed dielectric barrier discharge for the transformation of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) into value added products. Therefore, pure CH4 and CO2 have been introduced into the plasma discharge zone with the variation of feed flow rate, feed gas ratio and discharge power. It has been observed that at low flow rate of 20 mL/min (high residence time) the conversion of gases, selectivity and yield of products are higher, whereas, the optimum mole ratio of CH4/CO2 is 1.0. The activated species formed inside the plasma is diagnosed by emission spectroscopy. This study achieved 29% conversion of CH4 and 21% conversion of CO2 at SIE 6.4 J/mL with glass beads packed DBD, whereas energy efficiency has been found 1.75 mmol/kJ. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York.