(69g) Experimental Study of Hydrogen Production and Carbon Deposit From Spark Discharge Plasma of DME

This work presents experimental study of hydrogen production and carbon deposit from spark discharge plasma oxidation of DME at atmospheric pressure. The experimental results showed that as the spark energy increased, the DME conversion and H₂ yield initially increased and then decreased, with the maximal value of 87.6% and 39.4% at 80% pulse duty ratio, respectively. Meanwhile, the sparks with higher energy played a positive effect on self-clean of carbon deposit on anodes. With the air-to-DME (A/D) ratio increased from 0.5 to 3, the H₂ yield and DME conversion were increased gradually. The carbon deposit formed on the electrodes was due to insufficient oxygen. With the increase of A/D ratio, the carbon deposit on both electrodes was clearly reduced. The carbon deposit is completely avoided when the A/D ratio greater than 4.0. By comparative trial, not only the H₂ yield was enhanced about 2%-5% using cuprum anodes, but also the ability of self-clean was enhanced.