We isolated the catalytic effects of metal oxide catalysts for DBD plasma CO2 reduction processes by precisely synthesizing nanoscale layers with ALD. ALD allowed for control variations in structure, surface area, and electronic effects between catalysts. This allowed for the unambiguous study of the catalytic properties of each compound on under equivalent plasma and catalyst structure conditions. These studies show that these catalysts can withstand and be used for DBD plasma CO2 reduction for meaningful lengths of time and can be deposited onto support structures such that their affinities for CO2 reduction can be studied while maintaining identical bulk reactor properties such as flow rate, packing density, surface area and surface structure. The highest conversion efficiency was 2.6% utilizing the ALD-TiO2 at 15 W input power. ZnO, a common support material, showed an unexpected transition in its catalytic activity. At low power (15 W) it behaved similar to the bare support, while at high power (100 W) it yielded the highest overall CO2 conversion percentage (19.0%) of any catalyst. Post-catalyst studies showed that the ALD TiO2 and ZnO catalysts were resistant to carbon deposition when compared to ALD Al2O3.