Influence of Rise Time of Pulse Voltage on the Pulsed Plasma Conversion of Methane

Abstract

Recently, the authors developed a high-frequency pulsed plasma for methane conversion to acetylene and hydrogen. Such a pulsed plasma is potentially competitive to the commercial acetylene production processes. For the industrialization of this plasma technology, the influence of some factors, such as the pulse voltage, rise time of pulse voltage, pulse frequency, kind of background gases, temperature of the background gases, and electrode geometries, on methane conversion and the development of a pulse power supply should be cleared. In this study, the influence of the rise time of the pulse voltage on methane conversion has been investigated using a coaxial cylindrical type of reactor. The pulsed streamer/spark discharge occurred more easily with a pulse voltage of short rise time than with that of long rise time. The energy injection rate into the discharge space decreased with increasing the rise time of the pulse voltage. The rise time of the pulse voltage did not remarkably influence the methane con...