Methane conversion for hydrogen production*

Non-equilibrium plasma holds promise for methane decomposition and conversion to hydrogen and other valuable products. Recent projects at the Princeton Collaborative Research Facility on Low Temperature Plasma a capacitively coupled flow reactor operated at 13.56 MHz has been used for methane decomposition. It was reported previously that Ar/CH4 gas mixture operated at 4 torr and 200 W, resulted in the production of amorphous sp² graphitic nanomaterial and no solid product was detected for H₂/CH₄ mixtures. Recent gas analysis confirms high methane decomposition rate for Ar/CH₄ mixture operated at similar conditions accompanied by significant production of solid carbon material and acetylene in the gas phase. In addition to the RF flow reactor, dielectric barrier discharge decomposition of methane at atmospheric pressure with and without a catalyst is also discussed in light of recent PCRF projects.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable scientific contributions to this project by the team from Michigan State University including Tanvi Nikhar, Sankhadeep Basu, Rebecca Anthony, Sergey V. Baryshev.