An Experimental Study on Methane and Gasoline Reforming for Hydrogen Rich Gas Generation Using Non-Thermal Microwave Plasma

There are many different types of hydrogen forming technologies and subsequent application of hydrogen generated from this process. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of a newly developed low-cost microwave plasma system and its applicability for hydrogen generation. SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) could be a potential application for hydrogen generated by plasma systems or catalyst-assisted plasma systems. In this study, both methane and gasoline were reformed to generate hydrogen rich gas using a non-thermal microwave plasma reactor and the fundamental aspects of fuel reforming performance was evaluated. The experimental results show that the elevation of applied input power and the decrease of the total flow rate led to the increase of hydrogen and carbon monoxide yields. In case of methane reforming, when the feeding concentration of methane was about 1% of the total flow rate and O/C ratio was between 1.1 and 1.4, maximum hydrogen and carbon monoxide yields were achieved. As for the gasoline, the maximum syngas (H2+CO) yield was observed when O/C ratio was 1.1.