Role of Flow Regime and Swirl-Induced Electric Field Enhancement in Dry Methane Reforming Using a Rotating Gliding Arc Reactor

This research quantifies the impact of varying flow regimes, transient flows (TRANS-FLOW), turbulent flow (TURB-FLOW) and highly turbulent flows (HIGH TURB-FLOW), on the electrical and optical properties, product compositions, conversion (X), selectivity (S) and energy efficiency (η) of dry methane reforming (DRM) in a Rotating Gliding Arc (RGA) reactor using two swirl-hole diameters (1.6 and 1 mm) across different flow rates (Q). This study combines experimental work with chemical kinetics simulations using Chemical Workbench (CWB). The findings show that reducing the swirl hole diameter from 1.6 mm to 1 mm significantly enhances swirling effects. This swirl enhancement further resulted in a notable increase in the reduced electric field (E/N) from 142 to 157 Td at 5 SLPM and 167 to 185.2 Td at 50 SLPM. Reducing the swirl hole diameter also increased the product gas composition, i.e., H2 % from 3.4% to 5.5% at 5 SLPM and 0.3% to 0.6% at 50 SLPM. Compared to other work, this work reported the highest η in grams of H2 produced per kilowatt-hour (g of H2 kWh –1), i.e., 64 g of H2 kWh–1 at 20 SLPM. These findings are crucial for the scaling-up and optimization of the RGA reactor.