Recent Development of CO₂ Reforming of CH₄ by “Arc” Plasma

This paper presents a brief overview of CO₂ reforming of CH₄ (CRM) by various forms of “arc” plasma, which is more suitable to CRM, and the energy efficiency is used to evaluate different plasma processes specifically. According to the reported results, the arc thermal plasma with binode exhibited better performance. Moreover, the plasma CRM process was compared with the reported plasma steam reforming of CH₄ (SRM) process, and the results showed that the former process has advantages on energy efficiency and CH₄ consumption. Additionally, it is believed that the plasma CRM process would be competitive with the conventional SRM process in both energy efficiency and CO₂ emission once the heat management is emphasized and the renewable power is used. Finally, a concept of plasma reactor for industrial application is proposed.