Experimental study on chemical recuperation using hybrid dielectric barrier discharge-catalytic methane-steam reforming

Abstract

Hybrid dielectric barrier discharge-catalytic steam reforming is proposed here for use in chemically recuperated gas turbines, so as to be compatible with the low-temperature exhaust heat from turbines. Four different types of reactor were designed for comparison, and extensive experiments were performed to evaluate the exhaust heat recovery in terms of effective carbon recovery rate, methane conversion, fuel heating value increase rate, and total enthalpy increase rate. The effect of methane space velocity and reactor wall temperature on methane conversion have been analyzed. The results showed that, for any reactor, there was an optimum methane space velocity for the most heat recovery. With increasing wall temperatures, the parallel synergistic reforming technology induced more methane conversion than the other reactors. Under the same input power, parallel synergistic reactors could recover more exhaust heat than the sum of catalyst-only and plasma-only reactors, with a relative total enthalpy increase as much as three times the sum of the latter two. Moreover, the parallel synergistic reforming technology resulted in a higher relative total enthalpy increase for reformed gas at low temperatures. These results demonstrate that parallel synergistic reforming technology is a promising technology to significantly recover exhaust heat under different working conditions.