An Experimental Study of Plasma Cracking of Methane Using DBDs Aimed at Hydrogen Production

Abstract

We report the results of an experimental campaign about the production of hydrogen from methane cracking using a non-thermal plasma. Experiments have been performed using a nanosecond pulse high-voltage generator in a cylindrical dielectric barrier electrode setup. Our experiments show that high methane conversion could be achieved by pulsed electrical discharges in DBD configuration. Conversion could be as high as 60%, with a hydrogen yield of about 25%. The energy costs lie in the range 30–40 eV for molecule. Another set of experiments using a traditional sinusoidal dielectric barrier discharge reactor suggests that argon dilution could improve the performances of plasma methane reforming. A similar suggestion could be inferred by analyzing the results of numerical simulations of the gas-phase chemical kinetics evolution under pulsed electrical discharge conditions.