Hydrogen production from methanol through dielectric barrier discharge

Enhanced hydrogen generation efficiency of methanol using dielectric barrier discharge plasma methodology and conducting sea water as an electrode

“…This energy is supplied from the electrical generator to the reactor to activate the methanol molecule to higher energy levels and generate more energetic electrons and radicals. Due to this, initiation in the breaking of C-H and O-H bonds in methanol takes place leading to decomposition [27]. This results in the elevation in mole % of hydrogen with increase in discharge power which has been illustrated in Figure 7.…”

“…From the above experiment, it has also been observed that the rate of formation (mole %) of hydrogen increases with an increase in discharge power. The mole % of H 2 is directly dependent on the decomposition of methanol [27,28]. For a fixed volume and concentration of methanol, the decomposition will depend upon the applied energy generated from the plasma which initiates the chemical reaction.…”

“…It can be formed from various sources of raw materials such as higher hydrocarbons, green house gases, refinery gases and renewable materials such as wood, organic solid waste, sewages and alcohols derived from biomasses [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24]. Out of these, methanol has been widely used as a liquid fuel for production of hydrogen by different conversion technologies because of its high H 2 content, low-cost, easy storage and convenient transportation [16,25,26,27,28,29,30]. Recently, many methods have been introduced for the production of hydrogen such as stream reforming of methanol and natural gas [20,21,27], partial oxidation of methanol [31,32,33,34], gasification of coal [22], and electrolysis of methanol-water [23].…”

“…Several efforts have been made by researchers in this direction for conversion of methane, ethanol and methanol with the help of the DBD plasma technique for the effective production of hydrogen gas. Using a similar method, Wang et al [27] reported the production of hydrogen and discussed that using stainless steel inner electrode; longer discharge zone and bigger discharge gap would be beneficial for the reaction. Methanol degradation study by Sarmient et al [45] revealed the effect of parameters like voltage, frequency (1-6 kHz), roughness of electrode and flow rate etc.…”

“…The performance of the DBD reactor significantly depends upon the electrode materials (inner & outer). The choice of the inner electrode affects the methanol conversion and product selectivity [27]. It has been reported that methanol conversion is highest for stainless steel electrode and decreases for brass and aluminium gradually [27].…”