氫是未來有潛力的乾淨能源之一。這篇論文中，我們提出的產氫方法是利用電漿放電將碳氫化合物分解成氫氣和碳。為了提高產氫的效率，我們設計不同結構的電極和改變脈衝寬度。我們嘗試許多分解碳氫化合物的電極，例如: 以玻璃、陶瓷或填充催化劑為介電質的電極產生介電屏障放電。在以上的電極中，各有不同的特性，但以陶瓷為介電質的電極在分解碳氫化合物上有最好的效率及穩定性。我們也從事研究脈衝寬度效應與分解速率的關係。目前使用高壓電源脈衝產生器無法產生理想的波形。例如，當脈衝寬度超過10微秒，電壓波形會歪曲並有擾動，但會發生多次較短時間的放電反應，實驗結果得到在相同的運轉時間裡，分解速率增加（與5μs的例子做比較），而且在相同的輸入能量下，分解速率隨著脈衝寬度變寬而上升。但是脈衝寬度超過20微秒寬度，分解速率反而下降。因此，20μs 高壓脈衝可得到最好的產氫效率和效能。目前達到產氫的結果是產生1 mol的氫氣需要0.33 kWh的能量

Hydrogen is a long-term green energy solution. In the thesis, we describe a plasma method for decomposing methane or propane molecules into hydrogen molecules and carbon particles. The plasma discharge is generated by applying a pulsed high voltage to the electrode immersed in the methane or propane gas inside a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor. We investigate the hydrocarbon gas decomposition efficiency and hydrogen production by using different types of electrodes and different waveforms (pulse width and repetition rate) of high voltage pulses. The ceramic based DBD is the stable and most efficient electrode for decomposition. For producing discharges, high voltage pulses with width 5-30 μs and the pulse repetition rate of 4 kHz and maximum voltage amplitude of 13 kV are employed. The decomposition rate is observed to depend on the pulse width applied to DBD electrode. The present high voltage power source used in the experiments does not produce good waveform. If the pulse width is more than 10 μs, the pulse is distorted by multiple oscillation. As an example, a voltage pulse with 20 μs width has four ~5μs oscillations superposed on the voltage pulse, and thus for longer pulse width there are also more plasma discharges and the decomposition rate increases. However, for pulse width longer than 20μs the decomposition rate decreases. At present, the pulse with 20 μs pulse width shows the best efficiency for decomposition. The experimental results show that the decomposition depends on the input pulse width, which is related to the lifetime of plasma produced by each pulse. At present we have achieved the result that it requires approximately 0.33 kWh input energy to produce 1 mole of Hydrogen.

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