Investigation of Cracking by Cylindrical Dielectric Barrier Discharge Reactor on the n-Hexadecane as a Model Compound

The main process in oil refinery technologies is the cracking of the heavy fraction of oil into light and valuable hydrocarbons. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactors, working at atmospheric pressure and low temperature, is one of the newest methods for cracking hydrocarbons, which has been successfully used to crack low-carbon-containing molecules. Therefore, in this paper, the cracking of n-hexadecane as a heavy hydrocarbon fed by using the cylindrical DBD reactor (nonthermal plasma) has been investigated. We studied the effects of gas type, applied voltage, and gas flow rate quantitatively and qualitatively by using gas chromatography with flame ionization detector and mass spectrometry detector. Results showed that methane has better effects on both conversion and cracking percentage in comparison with air. Also, it has been shown that increasing the applied voltage and working gas flow rate enhances the conversion and the cracking percentages. The highest conversion percentage obtained was 9.26% when the applied voltage and methane flow rate were 12 kV and 50 sccm. In this condition, the cracking percentage obtained was 84.34% of the products.