Temperature Inhibition of Plasma-Driven Methane Conversion in DBD Systems

• Published in: Plasma chemistry and plasma processing 2023-11, Vol.43 (6), p.1999-2016
• Main Authors: Akintola, Ibukunoluwa, Rivera-Castro, Gerardo, Yang, Jinyu, Secrist, Jeffrey, Hicks, Jason C., Veloso, Felipe, Go, David B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemical reactions; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Classical Mechanics; DBD plasma; Dielectric barrier discharge; Dielectric breakdown; electrical characterization; Electrical properties; Gas composition; Gas mixtures; Inorganic Chemistry; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Low temperature; Mechanical Engineering; Methane; methane (CH4) reactions; Original Paper; Plasma; Plasma chemistry; Prebreakdown; System effectiveness; Temperature; Temperature dependence; Temperature effects; Thermal plasmas
• ISSN: 0272-4324; 1572-8986
• DOI: 10.1007/s11090-023-10388-x

Low-temperature non-thermal plasmas produce highly reactive chemical environments made up of electrons, ions, radicals, and vibrationally excited molecules. These reactive species, when combined with catalysts, can help drive thermodynamically unfavorable chemical reactions at low temperatures and atmospheric pressure. The conversion of methane (CH 4 ) to produce other value-added chemicals is a good model system because of its applicability to a wide range of industries. To effectively create these plasma catalytic systems, a fundamental understanding of the plasma-phase chemistry alone is imperative. While there have been many studies on methane plasmas and how certain operating conditions (i.e., gas composition and power) affect the plasma, there is limited understanding on how changing bulk reaction temperature affects the plasma properties and ensuing plasma chemistry. In this work, we use a dielectric barrier discharge to investigate the effects of temperature on the reaction chemistry and the plasma’s electrical properties in various methane-gas mixtures. Results show that increasing temperature leads to a reduction in methane conversion as well as changes to both the gas and dielectric material pre-breakdown, which manifests itself in temperature-dependent electrical properties of the plasma. Experiments at various temperatures and power show a positive correlation between key electrical plasma properties (average charge and lifetime per filament) and the measured methane conversion as a function of temperature.