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Methane has interested many researchers as a possible new energy source, but the high stability of methane causes a bottleneck in methane activation, limiting its practical utilization. To determine how to effectively activate methane using non-thermal plasma, the conversion of methane is measured in a planar-type dielectric barrier discharge reactor using three different noble gases—Ar, Kr, and Xe—as additives. In addition to the methane conversion results at various applied voltages, the discharge characteristics such as electron temperature and electron density were calculated through zero-dimensional calculations. Moreover, the threshold energies of excitation and ionization were used to distinguish the dominant particle for activating methane between electrons, excited atoms, and ionized atoms. From the experiments and calculations, the selection of the additive noble gas is found to affect not only the conversion of methane but also the selectivity of product gases even under similar electron temperature and electron density conditions.

The conversion of methane is measured in a planar-type dielectric barrier discharge reactor using γ-Al2O3 (sphere), α-Al2O3 (sphere), and γ-Al2O3 (16–20 mesh). Investigations on the surface properties and shape of the three packing materials clearly indicate that methane activation is considerably affected by the material used. Capacitances inside the discharge gap are estimated from charge–voltage plots, and a comparison of the generated and transferred charges for different packing conditions show that the difference in surface properties between γ- and α-phase Al2O3 affects the discharge characteristics. Moreover, all packing conditions show different charge characteristics that are related to the electron density. Finally, the packing material's shape affects the local electron temperature, which is strongly related to methane conversion. The combined results indicate that both microscale and macroscale variations in a packing material affect the discharge characteristics, and a packing material shoul...

The conversion of methane is measured in a planar-type dielectric barrier discharge reactor using three different noble gases—He, Ne, and Ar—as additives. The empirical results obtained clearly indicate that methane activation is considerably affected by thy type of noble gas used. Through 0-D calculations, the discharge parameters inside the reactor, i.e., electron temperature and electron density, are estimated using experiment results. A comparison of the discharge characteristics and experimental results shows that the electron temperature is an important factor in achieving high methane activation and the mixture with Ar gas shows the highest methane conversion. These results are constructed using the mechanisms of energy and charge transfer from excited and ionized noble gas atoms to methane molecules, considering the number density of active atoms of noble gases. Finally, electron temperatures obtained for gas mixtures having different reactant compositions and concentrations are analyzed to estimate methane activation.