Plasma Pyrolysis of Methane in a Molten-Metal Bubble Reactor

Abstract The paper presents the results of modeling the radical chain pyrolysis of methane in a flow reactor and a molten-metal bubble reactor at an initial temperature of 1300–1800 K, a pressure of 1–4 atm, and an additional radical concentration of 0–0.05%. It has been found that during equilibrium methane pyrolysis in the bubble reactor, the gas temperature decrease does not exceed 8% and the methane conversion at 1300 K increases from 6% (in a flow reactor) to 30% without changing the induction period, while it exceeds 60% at 1600 K. An additional radical concentration of 0.005% reduces the induction period of nonequilibrium methane pyrolysis at 1300 K from 15 to 1 ms, which corresponds to the equilibrium induction period of pyrolysis at 1500 K. The composition of methane pyrolysis products and the sensitivity coefficient of hydrogen synthesis have been analyzed.