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

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.