Decomposition of methane

SSIMS has also been used to study the adsorption of propene on ruthenium [3.29], the decomposition of ammonia on silicon [3.30], and the decomposition of methane thiol on nickel [3.31]. 

This means that the observed change in M mainly reflects a change in the source flux Q or the sink function. As an example we may take the methane concentration in the atmosphere, which in recent years has been increasing by about 0.5% per year. The turnover time is estimated to be about 10 years, i.e., much less than Tobs (200 years). Consequently, the observed rate of increase in atmospheric methane is a direct consequence of a similar rate of increase of emissions into the atmosphere. (In fact, this is not quite true. A fraction of the observed increase is probably due to a decrease in sink strength caused by a decrease in the concentration of hydroxyl radicals responsible for the decomposition of methane in the atmosphere.)... 

The steam reforming of natural gas process is the most economic near-term process among the conventional processes. On the other hand, the steam reforming natural gas process consists of reacting methane with steam to produce CO and H2. The CO is further reacted or shifted with steam to form additional hydrogen and CO2. The CO2 is then removed from the gas mixture to produce a clean stream of hydrogen. Normally the CO2 is vented into the atmosphere. For decarbonization, the CO2 must be sequestered[l,2]. The alternative method for hydrogen production with sequestration of carbon is the thermal decomposition of methane. 

A thermal plasma system has been developed for the decomposition of methane. A schematic diagram of the experimental apparatus is shown in Fig. 1. The system consists primarily of D.C. plasma torch, plasma reactor and filter assembly. Plasma was discharged between a tungsten cathode and a copper anode using N2 gas. All the experiments were carried out at atmospheric pressure at 6 kW input electric power and N2 flow rate of 10 to 12 1/min. The feed gas (CH4) flow rates were varied from 3 to 15 1/min depending on the operating conditions, shown in Table. 1. 

Direct thermal decomposition of methane was carried out, using a thermal plasma system which is an environmentally favorable process. For comparison, thermodynamic equilibrium compositions were calculated by software program for the steam reforming and thermal decomposition. In case of thermal decomposition, high purity of the hydrogen and solidified carbon can be achieved without any contaminant. 

Screening of metal oxide catalysts for carbon nanotubes and hydrogen production via catalytic decomposition of methane... 

Table 3 shows the performance of the promoted-catalysts for the decomposition of methane to hydrogen at 5, 60, 120 and 180 min of time on stream. The results in Table 3 revealed that the activity of the parent catalyst and MnOx-doped catalyst remained almost constant until 120 min of time on stream. The activity of the other promoted-catalysts, on the other hand, decreased with an increase in the time on stream. The data for the CoO-doped catalyst and 20 mol%NiO/Ti02 could not be recorded at 120 min and 180 min, respectively because of the pressure build-up in the reactor. This finding indicates that adding MnOx enhances the stability and the resistibility of the NiO/Ti02 catalyst towards its deactivation. 

Several other methods have been employed to access the conditions of bubble collapse. Misik et al. studied H20—D20 mixtures and through measurements with the use of spin traps, were able to determine the temperature from the relative rates of O—H and O—D cleavage [21]. They reported temperatures ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 K. Hart et al. developed a method based on the gas phase recombination of methyl radicals (MRR method), formed from the decomposition of methane [22]. They calculated temperatures of 2,000-2,800 K depending on the methane concentration. 

Selective transformations Selective styrene ring opening [103] One-pot domino process for regioselective synthesis of a-carbonyl furans [104] Tandem process for synthesis of quinoxalines [105] Atmospheric oxidation of toluene [106] Cyclohexane oxidation [107] Synthesis of imines from alcohols [108] Synthesis of 2-aminodiphenylamine [109] 9H-Fluorene oxidation [110] Dehydrogenation of ethane in the presence of C02 [111] Decomposition of methane [112] Carbon monoxide oxidation [113]... 

Couttenye, R.A., De Vila, M.H. and Suib, S.L. (2005) Decomposition of methane with an autocatalytically reduced nickel catalyst Journal ofCatalysis, 233,317-326. 

Gulyaev and Polak [Kinetics and Catalysis, 6 (352), 1965] have studied the kinetics of the thermal decomposition of methane with a view toward developing a method for the commercial production of acetylene in a plasma jet. The following differential equations represent the time dependence of the concentrations of the major species of interest. 

In most publications, Iijima is given credit for the discovery in 1991 of the nanotube structure of carbon (Iijima, 1991 Bethune et al., 1993 Iijima and Ichihashi, 1993). However, it has been said that Oberlin et al. (1976) also imaged carbon nanotubes, perhaps even SWNTs. Incredibly, nearly a century earlier, there was a study on the thermal decomposition of methane that resulted in the formation of long carbon strands, which were proposed at the time as a candidate for filaments in light bulbs (see Bacon and Bowman, 1957). 

Nonoxidative Processing of Hydrocarbons 2.3.1 Thermal Decomposition of Methane... 

Because methane decomposition reaction requires high temperatures, there have been attempts to use catalysts to reduce the temperature of thermal decomposition of methane. Figure 2.21 summarizes reported literature data on different catalysts for methane decomposition and the preferred temperature range. It can be seen that transition metals... 

The authors showed that the Grabke-type kinetic model can explain the results at a low carbon activity for Ni-Cu catalysts, but that at higher carbon activities, the rates for the Ni0 9Cu0 j catalysts are higher than the model-predicted rates. Low-temperature decomposition of methane over the silica-supported Ni catalyst has been reported by Kuijpers et al. [101]. It was demonstrated that at temperatures as low as 175°C, methane adsorbed on the Ni catalysts dissociates completely into adsorbed carbon atoms and hydrogen. 

Decomposition of methane to H2 and carbon over Ni/Si02 was carried out in a membrane reactor (membrane 90Pd-10Ag) [106]. The use of the membrane reactor allowed increasing the H2 yield by shifting the reaction equilibrium toward the products. An excellent review of the literature data on nonoxidative methane activation over the surface of transition metals was recently published by Choudhary et al. [107]. 

Schematic representation of carbon filaments of different structure produced by metal-catalyzed decomposition of methane, (a) Platelet structure, (b) "herringbone" structure, and (c) ribbon structure. MP denotes a nanosized metal particle.

Li et al. [Ill] reported the simultaneous production of hydrogen and nanocarbon by decomposition of methane on Ni and Ni-Cu catalysts. The authors demonstrated the production of hydrogen with a purity of 80 vol% over 10 h simultaneously, 180 g of nanotubes... 

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 ... 

Catalytic Decomposition of Methane for Fuel Cell Applications... 

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