Abstract This paper is aimed to investigate the effect of packing material on plasma characteristic from the viewpoint of charge transfer process. Both the charge accumulation and release processes in the dielectric barrier discharge reactor and packed-bed reactor were investigated by measuring voltage and current waveforms and taking ICCD images. The packing material was ZrO₂ pellets and the reactors were driven by a parameterized nanosecond pulse source. The quantity of transferred charges in the dielectric barrier discharge reactor was enhanced when decreasing pulse rise time or increasing pulse width (within 150 ns), but reduced when the gas gap was packed with pellets. The quantity of accumulated charges in the primary discharge was larger than the quantity of released charges in the secondary discharges in the dielectric barrier discharge reactor, but they were almost equal in the packed-bed reactor. It indicates that the discharge behavior has been changed from the view of charge transfer process once the gas gap was packed with pellets, and the ICCD images confirmed it.