Generating Hydrogen Gas from Methane with Carbon Captured as Pure Spheroidal Nanomaterials

Abstract

Energy production by using hydrogen gas as a feedstock is considered to be one of the keys to creating clean energy, with the proviso that the gas is generated in a sustainable way with no emissions. A simple, self-sustaining process generating hydrogen gas from methane using inexpensive stainless steel wire-mesh catalysts at elevated temperatures (800 °C) is reported. A theoretical analysis of the production of electricity by this process revealed peak chain energy efficiencies up to 21% (emission free) when using a percentage of the produced hydrogen (approximately 40% of purified yield) as the heat source. In addition, a practical method has been developed to purify the carbon byproduct, affording essentially pure highly graphitic spheroidal carbon for advanced materials applications.

The Direct Decomposition of Nitric Oxide Over Fe/CNOs (CNOs: Carbon Nano Onions)

“…At the ambient pressure, the methane diluted in nitrogen (CH 4 /N 2 D 1/1, v/ v) was fed into the mesh catalyst at 800 C for 8 h for cracking to produce CNOs together with hydrogen. [15] The CNOs were purified by successive treatment of 70% HNO 3 and washed repeatedly with deionized water. [15,22,23] After filtering, the CNOs were calcined at 400 C under air atmosphere in a furnace to remove the amorphous carbon.…”

“…[11][12][13] The carbon onions offer a moderate specific surface area (500 m 2 /g) compared to that of carbon blacks and activated carbons, but this surface is fully accessible to ion adsorption due to an almost perfect graphite network with a high degree of curvature. [14] Recently, we have developed a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method to largely produce CNOs, [15] which makes the utilization of CNOs as catalyst support viable. Precious metals supported on CNTs have been tested for NO decomposition.…”

Facile synthesis of electrochemically active Pt nanoparticle decorated carbon nano onions

“…CNOs, which were synthesized by a methane cracking method, 8 were initially suspended in concentrated nitric acid (HNO 3 ) and ultrasonicated for 1 hour, followed by refluxing at 180 1C overnight to remove metallic impurities. The product was filtered, washed with Milli-Q water several times and then dried in an oven at 120 1C.…”

“…6 Decorating them with metal nanoparticles has also attracted considerable attention in heterogeneous catalysis and for use in high capacity Li-ion batteries where there is excellent cycling performance. 7 Recently we demonstrated that CNOs can be produced with a low-cost large-scale methane cracking method, 8 thereby laying down the foundation for the industrial uptake of this unique carbon nanomaterial. Furthermore, a vortex fluidic device (VFD) has been shown to produce CNOs-Pd and CNOs-Pt nanocrystalline hybrid materials for sensor and fuel cell applications.…”

“…Furthermore, a vortex fluidic device (VFD) has been shown to produce CNOs-Pd and CNOs-Pt nanocrystalline hybrid materials for sensor and fuel cell applications. 9 In previous work, plasma etching and p-phosphonic acid calix [8]arene had been used as surface modification strategies to disperse CNOs, 9a,b resulting in 2-7 nm Pd and B20 nm Pt being deposited onto CNOs, depending on the speed of VFD.…”