Dry Reforming of Methane Using Cold Plasma; Kinetic Model Study

Abstract

<em>In this work, the dry reforming of methane was studied using a corona and gliding </em><em>discharge plasma microreactors. A chemical kinetic model was developed to describe the experimental</em><em> behavior observed. The kinetic model is proposed based on the assumption that </em><em>the reactant </em><em>molecules CH₄ or CO₂ are attacked by active species produced by the plasma discharges,</em><em> and the production of</em><em> this active species are a function of the plasma power. The modelization allowed the prediction of the conversion of the reactants</em><em> (CH₄ and CO₂) according to the energy transfer to the gas (</em><em>). </em><em>The </em><em>value is characteristic of the energy cost; the lower β value indicated better efficiency. The </em><em>value of CH₄ was found to be 10.42 and 58.25 J and for CO₂equal to 12.24 and 27.77 J for corona and gliding discharge plasma, respectively. The kinetic model also demonstrated that the methane and carbon dioxide conversion was an exponential function of the plasma energy, and were a linear function of the input energy for a CH₄ and CO₂ inlet concentration. Our Model also implied that a plasma </em><em>reactor with a smaller input discharge power has better energy efficiency for CO₂andCH₄ conversion.</em>