Hydrogen generation from water, methane, and methanol with nonthermal plasma

Hydrogen generation from water, methane, and methanol was investigated with different types of nonthermal plasma reactors under different conditions. With a ferroelectric packed-bed reactor in N-2, hydrogen gas yield decreased in the order: methanol > methane > water. A similar trend was observed with a silent discharge plasma reactor, but substrate conversions were much lower with the latter reactor. At fixed specific energy densities, higher H-2 yields were obtained at higher gas flow rates in the reactions of the above substrates. The initial water concentration was optimized at ca. 2.0 % to obtain the largest H-2 amount. Background O-2 suppressed H-2 yield. The ferroelectric packed-bed reactor could be operated continuously for 10 h without any decrease in H, yield.