Hydrogen production in microwave discharge in water with barbotage of methane at atmospheric pressure: Experiment and modeling

Gas chromatography was used to study the products of an atmospheric pressure microwave discharge in water with methane bubbling at incident microwave power ranging between 500 and 650 W and methane flow rate ranging between 25 and 75 mL/min. The main components of products are H2, CO, CO2, and CH4. The concentration of H2 reaches 75% with the energy consumption for hydrogen formation of 25 L/kWh. A zero-dimensional self-consistent nonstationary discharge model, which takes into account the process of quenching of reaction products, was developed to analyze experimental results and study mechanisms of the formation of hydrogen and carbon oxides. Taking into account the quenching of reaction products is an important and necessary part of modeling discharges in liquids. Microwave plasma in liquid hydrocarbons is the new area of plasma physics and plasma processing. In this article, we focus on the study of hydrogen production in microwave discharge in water with methane bubbling. This process is similar to so-called methane steam reforming. The process is studied using gas chromatography and optical emission methods and a specially designed zero-dimensional self-consistent model. This model includes the stage of quenching the products of reactions. Mechanisms of main gas products (H2, CO, and CO2) were determined. image