Abstract
Direct decomposition of methane offers two valuable products: hydrogen, and carbon black. However, methane is a stable molecule and its decomposition without catalyst requires temperatures of above 1,000 °C. There have been various transition metal catalysts used for methane decomposition in the past. However, using a metal catalyst is a major problem due to metal-carbon separation and catalyst deactivation because of carbon deposition on active sites. Therefore, carbonaceous catalysts have been the most efficient catalysts for direct decomposition of methane. The advantage of using carbon based catalysts is the low cost, the temperature and sulphur resistance, and no requirement of further separation of the catalyst. However, different physical characteristics of the carbon catalyst, including particle size, crystallographic structure, surface area, and the presence of surface groups, have direct effects on the kinetics of the reaction. By controlling such characteristics, methane decomposition can be optimized to achieve a higher production rate of hydrogen. This paper summarizes our extensive work on testing new as well as traditional carbon based catalysts via thermogravimetric analysis. Our results show that ordered mesoporous carbons are the most promising catalysts for methane decomposition.
