Role of Plasma Chemistry In Fuel Reforming Process

The purpose of the present study is to investigate role of plasma chemistry in a fuel reforming process. So far, role of plasma chemistry in a fuel reforming process has been a controversial issue, since coupling of plasma chemistry and thermal chemistry in fuel reforming process is inevitable. Especially, in the case of a fuel reforming along with exothermal reactions, like partial oxidation process, thermal effect of plasma seems dominant in the process. In order to identify role of plasma chemistry in a fuel reforming process, two different types of arc are generated; one is generated by relatively high voltage and low current, and the other one is generated by low voltage and high current. In this way, a fuel reforming process is conducted under different plasma conditions (temperatures and spatial distributions of radicals). Here, the plasma conditions for two different arcs are identified by OES. Fuel reforming test shows that partial oxidation process is rather insensitive to the different plasma conditions and is critically dependant on the input power. On the other hand, CO₂ reforming of methane, which is an endothermic process, is clearly affected by the types of arc generation, i.e. plasma conditions. This test result suggests that higher degree of non-equilibrium plasma would be need for the CO₂ reforming.