Syngas production from tar reforming by microwave plasma jet at atmospheric pressure: power supplied influence*

Now a day, scientific community is searching for new fuels able to replace fossil fuels with economic and environment gains and biofuel play a relevant rule, mainly for the transport sector. A major process to obtaining such type of renewable resource is biomass gasification. This process has as product a gas mixture containing CO, CH4, and H2 which is named synthesis gas (syngas). However, an undesirable high molecular organic species denominated tar are also produced in this process which must be removed. In this work, results of syngas production via tar reforming in the atmospheric pressure microwave discharge having as parameter the power supply. Argon, (argon + ethanol), and (argon +tar solution) plasma jet were produced by different values of power supplied (from 0.5 KW to 1.5 KW). The plasma compounds were investigated by optical spectroscopy to each power and gas composition. The main species observed in the spectrum are Ar, CN, OII, OIV, OH, H2, H(beta), CO2, CO, and SIII. This last one came from tar. The best value of the power applied to syngas production from tar reforming was verified between 1.0 KW and 1.2 KW.