Synthesis of Acetylene and Benzene in Controlled Methane-Plasma System

Abstract

High-energy chemistry is a special way of accelerating chemical reactions by transferring large portions of energy to individual molecules. The synthesis of acetylene and benzene is a valuable chemical product and used in technologies for the many organic products obtaining: synthetic rubber, vinyl chloride, acrylonitrile, ethylene, styrene. The article proposes an original version of the experimental setup and technology for plasma-activated methane conversion. Was tested a system of two connected reactors, one of which (the “cold” reactor) was displaced out of the microwave zone, and the other (the “hot” reactor) was located inside this zone. The surface of the “hot” reactor (which means its walls) was purged with argon at the selected temperature and flow rate. As a result, carbon phase structures were concentrated in the “cold” reactor, and organics (acetylene and benzene) were synthesized in the near-surface area of the “hot” reactor. Heat removal from the “hot” walls of the reactor by gas purging provided temperature control of the methane microwave plasma reforming process. The conversion of methane into acetylene and other products depends on the extremum point at the maximum temperature and pressure of the feeding gas stream in the “hot” reactor. In this system, a low-temperature IR optical cell made it possible to identify and extract the resulting conversion products.