Abstract
Methane reforming processes to obtain hydrogen were investigated experimentally by using atmospheric plasma source. Among possible reforming processes, such as a $CO_2$ reforming(dry reforming), a partial oxidation (POx), a steam reforming(SR), and a steam reforming with oxygen(SRO or auto-thermal reforming), partial oxidation and the steam reforming with oxygen were considered. We choose a rotating arc plasma as an atmospheric plasma source, since it shows the best performances in our preliminary tests in terms of a methane conversion, a hydrogen production, and a power consumption. Then, the effects of a feeding flow-rate, an electrical power input to a plasma reaction, an $O_2/C$ ratio and a steam to carbon ratio in the case of SRO on the reforming characteristics were observed systematically. As results, at a certain condition almost 100% of methane conversion was obtained and we could achieve the same hydrogen production rate by consuming a half of electrical power which was used by the best results for other researchers.
