Identification of Gas-Phase By-Products Formed During Electrical Discharges in Liquid Fuels

In this paper, a plasma-assisted reforming of liquid fuels using a streamer-like electrical discharge was carried out. The main objective was to study the fundamental chemistry of electrical discharges in liquid ethanol, hexadecane, and iso-octane and identify the by-products formed by the dissociation of these molecules. The results have shown that the electrical discharge in all three liquids yields a wide variety of by-products including hydrogen, methane, acetylene, ethylene, propene, butadiene, and ethane. Additionally, the discharge in ethanol results in the formation of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.