• An in situ electron-induced deNOx process with CNT activated by DBD was achieved. • Carbon atoms on CNT surface were verified to be excited by plasma in DBD-CNT system. • Reactions between NOx and excited C result in synergistic effect of DBD-CNT system. In this study, a new in situ electron-induced process is presented with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a reduction agent activated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) for nitrogen oxide (NOx) abatement at low temperature (<407 K). Compared with a single DBD system and a DBD system with activated carbon (DBD-AC), a DBD system with carbon nanotubes (DBD-CNT) showed a significant promotion of NOx removal efficiency and N2 selectivity. Although the O2 content was 10%, the NOx conversion and N2 selectivity in the DBD-CNT system still reached 64.9% and 81.9% at a specific input energy (SIE) of 1424 J/L, and these values decreased to 16.8%, 31.9% and 43.2%, 62.3% in the single DBD system and the DBD-AC system, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were utilized to investigate surface changes in the CNTs after activation by DBD to explore the NOx reduction abatement mechanism of this new process. Furthermore, the outlet gas components were also observed via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to help reveal the NOx reduction mechanism. Experimental results verified that carbon atoms excited by DBD and the structure of CNTs contributed to the synergistic activity of the DBD-CNT system. The new deNOx process was accomplished through in situ heterogenetic reduction reactions between the NOx and carbon atoms activated by the plasma on the CNTs. In addition, further results indicated that the new deNOx process exhibited acceptable SO2 tolerance and water resistance.