Abstract
We studied the influence of dense, spherical packing materials, with different chemical compositions, on the dry reforming of methane (DRM) in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor. Although not catalytically activated, a vast effect on the conversion and product selectivity could already be observed, an influence which is often neglected when catalytically activated plasma packing materials are being studied. The α-Al2O3 packing material of 2.0–2.24 mm size yields the highest total conversion (28%), as well as CO2 (23%) and CH4 (33%) conversion and a high product fraction towards CO (~70%) and ethane (~14%), together with an enhanced CO/H2 ratio of 9 in a 4.5 mm gap DBD at 60 W and 23 kHz. γ-Al2O3 is only slightly less active in total conversion (22%) but is even more selective in products formed than α-Al2O3. BaTiO3 produces substantially more oxygenated products than the other packing materials but is the least selective in product fractions and has a clear negative impact on CO2 conversion upon addition of CH4. Interestingly, when comparing to pure CO2 splitting and when evaluating differences in products formed, significantly different trends are obtained for the packing materials, indicating a complex impact of the presence of CH4 and the specific nature of the packing materials on the DRM process.
Highlights
An increasing energy and resource demand from a growing population and the impact it has on the environment, necessitate enhancing the share of renewable energy and replacing fossil fuels, by recycling waste streams
The datapoints on CO2 conversion in dry reforming of methane (DRM), as obtained for the original compared to the conversion that we obtained before for pure CO2 splitting [32], evidencing a clear article [1], were correct remain unaltered
Our experiments clearly reveal that the absolute CO2 conversion is higher for DRM than for CO2 splitting, with the exception of BaTiO3
Summary
An increasing energy and resource demand from a growing population and the impact it has on the environment, necessitate enhancing the share of renewable energy and replacing (part of the) fossil fuels, by recycling waste streams. These challenges have given the incentive for new methodologies that allow converting (two) greenhouse gasses (CO2 and CH4 ) into value added chemicals (like syngas, basic chemicals) and fuels [1,2]. These high values for conversion and energy efficiency are a definite advantage of thermal DRM but require a high temperature (900–1200 K) and a catalyst
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