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Professor N. Lior
Editor-in-Chief
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6315
USA
Sincerely,
Antotonius Indarto
1. Corresponding Author:
Antonius Indarto
Clean Technology Research Center,
Korea Institute of Science & Technology
P.O. Box 131, Cheongryang, Seoul 130-650, Korea
Email: indarto_antonius@yahoo.com
Telp: +82-19-352-1981
Fax: +82-2-958-5209
2. Prime novelty
Complete analysis of methane conversion mixed with four kinds of gases, helium, argon,
nitrogen, and CO2, by gliding arc plasma was done by calculating the conversion of
methane, selectivity of gas product, and power consumption. The experiment was done
at the same parameter condition and compared each other. Actually, no paper wrote
about this kind experiment (effect of additive gas on methane conversion) in gliding arc
plasma. The result explanation was also compared with other plasma system with use
the same kind of gases.
Effec t of Additi ve Gases on Me th ane C on versi on usi ng Glidi ng Arc
Dis ch ar ge
Antonius Indarto† , Jae-Wook Choi, Hwaung Lee and Hyung Keun Song
Abstra ct - Methane conversion using gliding arc plasma has been studied. The process
Helium, Aargon, Nnitrogen, and CO2— were used to investigate their effects on methane
was increased with the increasing concentration of Hhelium, Aargon, and Nnitrogen in
the feed gas, but decreased when CO2 concentration increased. Qualitatively, hydrogen
and acetylene were the major gas products. No liquid product was produced.
Intr oduct io n
† †
* Corresponding author: E-mail:indarto_antonius@yahoo.com, Tel:+82-19-352-1981
synthesis gas, acetylene, and other higher hydrocarbon or black carbon is still
becoming a challenge [1]. Many studies have been done intensively for several
decades, especially for direct methane conversion. The major problem on this route
Many research groups used the catalytic method to overcome this problem and reported
some good results. But it was not still any problem. A (?) Ccarbon solid deposition on a
(?) catalyst surface, which that was produced by a chemical reaction, became the
greatest barrier to transfer this technology from the laboratory intto the industrial
scale. The catalyst was needed a specific temperature, which was usually 100-200oC
higher than room temperature, to activate the catalytic site. It means heat supply was
significantly required. Another reported problem was the small flow of injected raw gas.
Now daysCurrently, more and more investigations have been deeply performed using
non-conventional technology, like plasma technology. Plasmas, both thermal and non-
thermal plasmas, have been extensively studied for methane conversion. Different kinds
using glow discharge [2-4], Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) [5-11], Corona [3,12],
Spark [3], arc plasma-jet [13], RF plasma [14,15], thermal plasma [16,17] have been
variables effect on CH4 plasma reaction(s)?, such as a plasma power generator [18,19],
catalyst process-assisted [20,21], water vapor injection [22] were also experimentally
investigated.
Cold plasmas such as corona, glow discharge, and DBD were very cheap and easy to
handle, making them a promising possibility. It becomes great possibility to be applied
in the industry. The main problem was the plasma density, which is very low. It made it
rather difficult to achieve a (?) higher conversion at a higher flow rate. However, hot
plasmas which typically high temperature arc plasmas produced very high density of
plasma and capable to maintain high injection gas flow rate. But the instrument cost was
To overcome theose problems, plasma devices, which areis located in the transition
region between the glow and arc state, wereas introduced. Gliding arc plasma at low
current intensity, which is also called glowing arc, became a favor due to its
characteristics under transition region, such as higher electron density, higher flame
overheating, and high injection flow rate. Its applications have been increasing.
Decomposition of H2S [23], N2O [24], CHCl3 and CCl4 [25,26], which were employing
Gliding Arc as the destruction tool, have been investigated and studied. High percentage
of destruction efficiency has been claimed using this method. Many papers were also
discussing on the discharge behavior of gliding arc plasma. Theoretical and numerical
study of gliding arc to describe it has been published with showing many mathematical
equations [27-31].
In this study, Gliding Arc plasma was used to convert methane into higher hydrocarbon
like acetylene and other valuable products such as solid carbon black, hydrogen, and
synthesis gas. The investigation was deeply concerned on the effect of additive gases
such as argon, helium, CO2, and nitrogen to the methane conversion, product
Figure 1
purity of 99.97% and additive gases were used as source of gas. Details of each part of
The reactor was made from a quartz-glass tube of inner diameter 450 mm and total
volume 0.5 l. The upper part and bottom of the reactor supplied with a teflon seal
comprised two electrodes reduced the consumed power. The conversion could reach
~65% at 10% CH4 diluted with 90% of argon or helium. Increasing dilute gas ratio
CO2 was converted to CO and O2 in the gliding arc plasma. Selectivity of CO reached
50-60% and O2 reached 30-40%. When methane was mixed with CO2, the conversion of
methane relatively decreased. Hydrogen, CO, and acetylene were the main products of
plasma reaction.
This study was supported by National Research Laboratory Program of Korea Minister
of Science and Technology.
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5 L it t r e
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Reviewer 1
p7 – line 11 : “ because the relative low ionisation potential of argon and helium as
compared to other species”
from the handbook, I found:
CH4 = 12.6 eV, Ar = 15,8 eV, He = 24,5 eV and hydrocarbons and related radicals show
ionisation potential around 10 - 11 eV.. so it seems that this sentence is wrong?
Instead of electrons the presence of excited metastable species of Ar and He could
explain the results obtained..
p8 – line 14: about the role of N2: not only high vibrational levels are involved but
probably also excited metastable species N2 (A) and N2 (a’).
p8 - last line: references Diamy et al. correspond to ref [2, 3, 4] not to [2, 5 ,8].
p9 – line 18: in reference 4 = no CO2 has been added to CH4, it is a product of the
conversion.
p10 - line13: “Different from..…CO2 was much more difficult to be ionised …..
conversion” :
ionisation potential of CO2 = 13.8 eV , lower than that of Ar and He but higher than that
of CH4 so this sentence is not clear?
Reviewer 2