Research Of Gliding Arc Discharge Plasma Assisted Reforming Of Methane Into Hydrogen

Gliding arc discharge is a plasma discharge technique under normal temperature and pressure. It possesses both equilibrium and non-equilibrium characteristic, the former one ensures the amount of productivity and the latter ensures the efficiency of chemical reactions. Therefore, gliding arc discharge assisted methane reforming has great prospect, but the energy consumption needs to be lowered.In this article, gliding arc assisted methane reforming was systematically studied, with the main focus on the effects of various oxidants, air flow rates, discharge voltage and other parameters on methane reforming. Also discussed are technical improvements on catalyst assisted gliding arc discharge reforming, chopped wave gliding arc, rotating gliding arc processes.The research results show that, when using carbon dioxide as the oxidant, gliding arc discharge reforming can get a significant improvement on the results compared with thermodynamic equilibrium state, but the energy consumption is still high; when reforming simulated biogas with oxygen, the addition of oxygen will increase the energy consumption; when reforming methane with oxygen and water vapor, small amount of vapor can improve the reforming result, while energy consumption reaches the lowest with oxygen added at an appropriately insufficient amount. Increasing discharge voltage can enhance the power and promote the process of reforming. With air flow rate's increase, Energy consumption decreases at first and then increases.For catalyst assisted gliding arc discharge, the selectively partial oxidation can effectively improve the reforming of methane, ethylene, and acetylene, and greatly decrease the energy consumption.When using chopped wave gliding arc discharge, energy consumption is the lowest when the power was cut to half wave, but the overall effect is not significant. While when using rotating gliding arc discharge reforming, strong fire will be formed in addition to gliding arc because of the partial oxidation of acetylene and ethylene, which can improve the reforming of methane and hydrogen production, and greatly decrease the energy consumption.