Methanol And Methane Conversion With Dielectric-barrier Discharge

Due to both the current decrease in natural reserves of fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect from CO2 emissions generated by present-day processes of energy production, considerable research is currently being carried out on new energy sources to replace traditional sources, such as the use of hydrogen (H2). Furthermore, with the gradual decrease of petroleum resources, more and more attention has been paid to the exploitation and application of natural gas. The conversion of methane becomes the highlight of natural gas utilization because it is the major component of nature gas. It is well known that plasma is a very effective method to activate molecules. Furthermore, the low temperature plasma is predominantly utilized in methanol and methane conversion for its unique non-equilibrium character.In this experiment, methanol decomposing to produce H2 and hydrocarbons through dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reaction was studied. We added methanol into reactor with Bubbling method. Effects of the power supply parameters, reactor parameters and process conditions on conversion of methanol and distribution of products were investigated. Under dielectric-barrier discharge plasma, the products of methanol conversion contain gaseous products (H2, CO, CH4, C2H2, C2H4, C2H6, C3H8, etc), liquid products (ethyl alcohol, isopropanol, propanol, isobutanol, 2-butanol, 1-butanol, etc). The highest methanol conversion and H2 yield were 82.38% and 27.43%, respectively.In the process of adding methanol solution with peristaltic pump, steam reforming of methanol was studied. The proper conditions were: the gasification chamber temperature of 130℃; methanol solution flow of 0.20ml/min; Molar ratio of water and methanol of 2.0. Added methanol steam reforming catalyst, methanol conversion rate increased from the previous 51.88 to 76.71%, while the hydrogen yield increased from 16.63 to 59.13%.Finally, using peristaltic pump adding method, the conversion of methane with steam was investigated via dielectric barrier discharge in this thesis. The effect of plasma generator parameters, reactor parameters and reactive technologic condition on methane/steam conversion was investigated. In Experiment, the highest methane conversion and H2 yield were26.65%and 13.16%, respectively. Subsequently, the methane steam reforming catalyst was used to investigate the catalytic effect on plasma reaction for methane steam reforming. The methane conversion increased from 26.65 to 52.53%; while the yield of hydrogen increased from 13.16 to 67.65%.