Carbon Separation During Pure Methane Plasmalysis Using a 3D-Rotating Gliding Arc Reactor

Abstract The methane pyrolysis in plasmas, so-called plasmalysis, was investigated using a novel design of 3D rotating gliding arc (RGA). The carbon deposition streamlines on the walls as a function of flow rate were also studied as an important step to study the gas dynamics in the system. The performance of our setup was investigated in terms of consumed power and energy cost per molecule. For the used power, it was found that the best gas condition with respect to conversion is at 10 SLM of pure $$\hbox {CH}_4$$ , while the best gas condition was 30 SLM of pure $$\hbox {CH}_4$$ with respect to the energy cost. Using our novel reactor design that is amenable to scale-up, we have achieved energy costs between 2 and 6 eV per molecule for the effective conversion of pure methane. Moreover, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy was used to study the elemental composition of the produced carbon particles during the plasmalysis process. It was found that these particles consist mainly of $$sp^{2}$$ -hybridized carbon and that their amount depends on the flow rate.