Hydrogen Production from Hydrocarbons Using Plasma: Effect of Discharge Pulsewidth on Decomposition

Hydrogen production in vehicles is underway using plasma discharges working in high pressure conditions of over 1.5 atm. In this system, no production of CO_x is expected. The original fuel for the system is methane (CH₄) or propane (C₃H₈). For those purposes, mainly dielectric barrier discharge nonthermal plasma system is employed with a high voltage pulse of width 5-30 μs and a maximum amplitude of 13 kV. The decomposition rate depends on the input pulsewidth; here, a 5-30-μs width pulse is tried, but each pulse is composed of multiples of fundamental 5-μs pulse. Up to a 20-μs width, the decomposition efficiency increases, but above that value, it decreases. The physical phenomena of the pulsewidth dependence depend on the life time of plasma produced by each pulse.