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Investigation on Plasma‐Driven Methane Dry Reforming in a Self‐Triggered Spark Reactor
Author(s) -
Shapoval Volodymyr,
Marotta Ester
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
plasma processes and polymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.644
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1612-8869
pISSN - 1612-8850
DOI - 10.1002/ppap.201400177
Subject(s) - syngas , methane , acetylene , yield (engineering) , carbon dioxide reforming , reagent , chemistry , selectivity , energy conversion efficiency , carbon fibers , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemical engineering , materials science , catalysis , organic chemistry , metallurgy , optoelectronics , composite number , engineering , composite material
The performance of methane dry reforming in a self‐triggered spark discharge reactor is evaluated in terms of conversion of reagents, yield and selectivity of desired products (syngas), and energy efficiency. The effects of feed gas composition (CO 2 :CH 4 ratio), flow rate and input electrical power were investigated. The process performance is very good: under the best experimental conditions (CO 2 :CH 4 of 1:1 at 100 mL · min −1 , input power of 20 W) conversion (71% for CH 4 and 65% for CO 2 ), selectivity (78% for H 2 and 86% for CO), and energy efficiency (2.3–2.4 mmol · kJ −1 ) are all quite high. The formation of ethane, ethylene, and acetylene was also detected and analyzed as a function of the CO 2 :CH 4 ratio. As the CO 2 :CH 4 ratio is decreased below 1, the conversion of both CH 4 and CO 2 slightly increases, but the yield in syngas decreases favoring the formation of C 2 hydrocarbons and the appearance of carbon deposits. Increasing the CO 2 :CH 4 ratio from 0.5 to 1.5 has virtually no effect on the reagents conversion and on H 2 production but promotes the formation of CO and reduces that of C 2 hydrocarbons. The best CO 2 :CH 4 was determined to be 1.0 considering also the lowest formation of water as byproduct and the optimal discharge stability.