Low Carbon-Intensity Thermal Plasma Production of Hydrogen and High-Value Carbon Products: a 10-Year Journey from Lab to Commercial Scale

A novel thermal plasma technology operating at commercial scale is described in this talk. The current and future role of plasma in the global decarbonization effort is discussed with emphasis on hydrocarbon pyrolysis, including challenges and opportunities facing both academia and industry. The prospects of plasma-based manufacturing and plasma as an enthalpy source (as an alternative to some combustion-based processes) presents a plethora of opportunity for fundamental scientific advances. In particular, replacing mature combustion-based technologies which rely on direct mixing of reactants/feedstocks and combustion gases with plasma-based technologies will require discovery of new chemical kinetics pathways, a deeper understanding of the role plasma plays in chemical processing and materials synthesis, and applied engineering solutions in order to commercially realize numerous low carbon-intensity plasma-based methods being actively pursued today. Physical and chemical features of thermal plasma hydrocarbon processing are given attention in this talk. Emphasis is placed on the combined use of fluid-thermal modeling and detailed kinetic and particle formation theory applied to thermal plasma pyrolysis.