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/sub 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/sub 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/sub 2/ amount. Background O/sub 2/ suppressed H/sub 2/ yield. The ferroelectric packed-bed reactor could be operated continuously for 10 h without any decrease in H/sub 2/ yield.