Development of liquid fuel reformer using Low Energy Pulse (LEP) discharge at room temperature

We studied steam reforming of ethanol at room temperature and atmospheric pressure using low energy pulse (LEP) discharge. In this study, we employed characteristic novel reformer, one electrode was made of carbon fibers (o.d. 7. 0 μm) bundle. So fuel was supplied to discharge region by capillary action of the fibers and reformed directly by LEP plasma without any pump or heater. When using this reformer, at first, the fuel was evaporated by heat emission from electrode, and then the vaporized reactants were reacted. Produced gaseous compounds were collected from upper part of the reactor, and analyzed by gas chromatography. H₂ and other compounds: CO, CH₄, CO ₂, C₂H₄, and C₂H₆ were produced, and the formation rates were increased in proportion to the increase of the gap distance and input power. And compared to the former conventional reformer, the results were equivalent to the rates of gas phase reactor. The effects of ethanol concentration and of energy efficiency were studied, and the energy efficiency (LHV based) has reached 89.3 % at the ethanol concentration of 50 %, the discharge gap of 3.0 mm.