Microplasma reforming of hydrocarbons

Batteries have not been able to keep pace with the technological advances of modern electronic devices. As electronics systems have become more essential in everyday life so has the need for new, efficient, compact power sources. Portable fuel cells are attractive replacements to batteries because of their higher specific energy density, lower operating costs, and reduced emissions in comparison to combustion systems. Despite these advantages portable fuel cells have not been fully adopted for common applications due to a lack of a readily available hydrogen source. Hydrogen storage has been explored as an option, but hydrogen requires large volumes even when compressed, limiting portability. A more sensible approach is to convert available hydrocarbon fuels through a reforming process. Common reforming systems use catalysts but on the portable scale have a number of limitations such as poisoning, coking, coarsening, long start up times and excessive costs. Plasma reforming circumvents these problems and has been researched as a reforming media for hydrocarbons like diesel, oil, gasoline, methane and natural gas among others. These investigations have shown the promise of plasma reforming but none has succeeded in achieving suitable system efficiencies. Through the implementation of an efficient atmospheric pressure non-thermal microplasma, there is promise for a hydrocarbon reforming system that circumvents current catalyst reforming issues and improves on conventional plasma reactors.;Our experimental microplasma device is based on MEMS (microelectromechanical system) technology. This microplasma reactor is based on the micro hollow cathode discharge (MHCD) device architecture. Microplasma reactor chips were fabricated at the Cornell NanoScale Science & Technology Facility (CNF) using common microfabrication techniques. Experiments involving a flow system of methane, butane and methanol have demonstrated the reforming capability of these reactors. From reforming experiments mass and energy balances were determined as were estimates of energy efficiency. Energy efficiencies have reached more than 50%. Models of the microplasma reaction indicate that overall conversion and efficiency can be improved through reducing the volume of the microplasma device.