The conversion of CH4 with oxygen and steam in a dielectric barrier discharge （DBD） was studied in the paper to discuss the effects of different factors, such as the content of feed-in gas, the applied voltage and frequency. The results showed that a lower ratio of CH4 to O2 always resulted in a higher conversion of CH4. When it was 2, the conversion reached 32.43% without steam introduced into the system. The main effect of steam was increasing the selectivity to CO. The reaction was accelerated and the selectivities to CO and hydrocarbons were enhanced by increasing the applied voltage. It was also observed that a higher frequency led to a lower current and then restrained the reaction.
Effects of additive gases on dimethyl ether （DME） conversion through dielectric barrier discharge （DBD） were investigated. Most of the additive gases tested in this work increased the conversion of DME, but decreased the yield of liquid product. However, the addition of O2 markedly increased both the conversion of DME and the yield of liquid product. The results show that when O2 volume fraction was 39.95%, the conversion of DME was close to 100% and the yield of liquid product reached 34.43%. Different additive gases resulted in different mass fractions variation of components in liquid products.
Effects of cooling methods on stability and methane conversion rate using dielectric-barrier discharges （DBD） were systematically investigated in this article. The results showed that the methane conversion rate was as high as 44.43% in a pure methane system at a flow rate of 100 mL·min^-1 and an input power of 234.2 W with air cooling. A dark greenish and soft film-like carbon was deposited on the outer surface of quartz tube when the outer electrode was watercooled, which decreased the methane conversion. With air cooling of inner electrode the selectivity of C2 hydrocarbons was higher than that with other cooling methods, while the C3 hydrocarbons had higher selectivity with flowing water cooling. Cooling the inner electrode could restrain the carbon deposition, but would decrease the methane conversion rate. The stability of both reaction and plasma operation can be improved through cooling the reactor. From thermodynamic analysis, it was found that the effective collisions frequency among the reactant molecules and free electrons （e^-） increased with temperature, which in turn led to a higher methane conversion rate and a change in the distribution of products.
