Influence of Waveform of Applied Voltage on H2 Production From Methane Reforming Using Dielectric Barrier Discharge

The influence of waveforms of the applied voltage on hydrogen production from methane reforming using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is investigated. Three types of high voltage power generators with different pulse shape with widths of 50 μs-250 ns and voltage rise speeds of 7.6 × 10
⁴
-5.2 × 10
¹⁰
V/s of sinusoidal, bipolar pulses, and a nanosecond pulse voltage are used to control the waveform. The energy efficiency for hydrogen production in the case of nanosecond pulse is approximately 0.9 g/kW·h, much higher than those of sinusoidal and bipolar pulses, with approximately 0.5 g/kW·h. This is due to that the voltage rise speed by the short pulse is much higher than those using the sine wave and the bipolar pulse, and so the discharge by the short pulse is uniformly generated. The hydrogen production increases and the energy efficiency decreases slightly with increasing pulse repetition rate. The hydrogen production efficiency is independent of the gas pressure within the ranges from 0.12 to 0.16 MPa.