Kinetic study of nonequilibrium plasma-assisted methane steam reforming

Abstract

To develop a detailed reaction mechanism for plasma-assisted methane steam reforming, a comprehensive numerical and experimental study of effect laws on methane conversion and products yield is performed at different steam to methane molar ratio (S/C), residence time s, and reaction temperatures. A CHEMKIN-PRO software with sensitivity analysis module and path flux analysis module was used for simulations. A set of comparisons show that the developed reaction mechanism can accurately predict methane conversion and the trend of products yield in different operating conditions. Using the developed reaction mechanism in plasma-assisted kinetic model, the reaction path flux analysis was carried out. The result shows that CH3 recombination is the limiting reaction for CO production and O is the critical species for CO production. Adding 40 wt.% Ni/SiO2 in discharge region has significantly promoted the yield of H2, CO, or CO2 in dielectric packed bed (DPB) reactor. Plasma catalytic hybrid reforming experiment verifies the reaction path flux analysis tentatively.