Carbon-Catalyzed Decomposition of Methane

The use of carbon-based catalysts offers certain advantages over metal catalysts due to their availability, durability, and low cost. In contrast to the metal-based catalysts, carbon catalysts are sulfur resistant and can withstand much higher temperatures. Muradov [98,99] screened a variety of carbon materials and demonstrated that the efficient catalytic methane decomposition can be accomplished over high surface area carbons at temperatures 

The apparent reaction order of carbon-catalyzed methane decomposition reaction was determined to be 0.6 0.1 for AC (lignite) and 0.5 0.1 for CB (BP2000) catalysts. Thus, the rate equation for carbon-catalyzed decomposition of methane can be written as follows  

This is followed by a series of surface stepwise dissociation reactions leading to elemental carbon and hydrogen (the stepwise mechanism was suggested for Ni-catalyzed methane decomposition in Refs 100 and 122)  

Kim et al. [123] conducted the kinetic study of methane catalytic decomposition over ACs. Several domestic (South Korea) ACs made out of coconut shell and coal were tested as catalysts for methane decomposition at the range of temperatures 750-900°C using a fixed-bed reactor. The authors reported that no significant difference in kinetic behavior of different AC samples was observed despite the differences in their surface area and method of activation. The reaction order was 0.5 for all the AC samples tested and their activation energies were also very close (about 200 kj/mol) regardless of the origin. The ashes derived from AC and coal did not show appreciable catalytic effect on methane decomposition. 

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