Plasma-assisted methane conversion in an atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge reactor

In this paper, a cylindrical dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor has been developed for the conversion of methane into hydrogen and other valuable chemicals. The effects of a wide range of processing parameters including discharge power, residence time and frequency on the performance of plasma methane conversion reaction have been investigated. The results show that the CH4 DBD could be characterized as a typical filamentary discharge with a microdis-charge zone in each half-cycle of the applied voltage. The conversion of CH4 reaches a maximum of 25.2% at a feed flow rate of 50 mL·min−1, a discharge power of 45 W and an excitation frequency of 20 kHz. It is found that the residence time of methane in the discharge zone has the most significant effect on both methane conversion and hydrogen yield, which are significantly higher at higher residence time.