Hydrogen Production from Water Vapor Plasmolysis Using DBD-Corona Hybrid Reactor

Abstract

Hydrogen is produced by plasmolysis of (1) demineralized water vapors (steam) and (2) water vapor and argon gas. In the current study, a custom-made dielectric barrier discharge (DBD)-corona hybrid reactor has been designed and used for steam plasmolysis. The objective is to show the feasibility of hydrogen production from water vapor plasmolysis at atmospheric pressure at a relatively smaller interelectrode distance and to characterize the plasma for its fundamental properties. The generated plasma properties have been characterized by applying spectrometric analysis, in which the measured plasma temperatures are demonstrated in the order Te > Texc > Trot, which confirms the nonlocalized thermal equilibrium (LTE) existence in the plasma bulk. Moreover, the estimated electron number density (1.765 × 1017 m–3) shows an exceptional energy for water vapor dissociation, which eventually results in a reasonable efficiency. The estimated energy efficiency and thermodynamic efficiency for water vapor plasmolysis along with steam was found to be 78.8% and 79.2%, respectively. Accordingly, the calculated production rate (20 g/kWh) and the predicted cost (£0.09/kWh) are shown to be competitive to the electrolysis process, which is increasingly applied for hydrogen production, with the benefit of reduced equipment size and low power consumption.