Thermocatalytic Decomposition of Methane for Sustainable Hydrogen Production using Ni/ZnO and Ni/MgO catalyst

Abstract

Hydrogen is considered as a fuel of future due to its environmental friendly nature. Thermo Catalytic Decomposition of Methane (TCD) is one of the most advanced method, which will meet the future demand and attractive way for CO_x free hydrogen production. In this paper, comparison study between Ni/ZnOand Ni/MgO catalysts for hydrogen production using thermocatalytic decomposition of methane. The effect of nickel weight percentage (10%, 20%, 30% and 40wt %) and reaction temperature (650, 700, 750 and 800ºC) with Ni/ZnO and Ni/MgOcatalysts were performed for hydrogen production studies at 54sccm flowrate of methane. It was observed that at 30wt% of Ni/ZnO and 30wt% of Ni/MgOshowed the maximum hydrogen production of 34.54 volume% and 24.10 volume % at 60min of reaction time at 700ºC. Before and after the reaction catalysts were characterized by the XRD, BET surface area, SEM and TEM analysis. Apart from hydrogen production carbon nanorods were observed with a diameter 5-10nm and length is found to be around 0.4µm respectively for Ni/ZnO and for Ni/MgO catalyst as 50-10nm and 2µm respectively.