Decarbonizing Canada's hydrogen production using low-cost methane pyrolysis catalytic reactors

面对气候变化，加拿大的能源部门正面临重大破坏。为了实现加拿大的气候目标，加拿大的石油和天然气部门必须在几乎没有温室气体排放的情况下生产大量的氢气。天然气制氢的一种发展方法是热分解；在没有氧气的情况下，气体被加热，产生氢、固体碳和少量高级碳氢化合物。催化剂常用于甲烷热解，以提高低温下的转化效率。反应器中的积碳（焦炭）是反应器设计中的一个挑战，需要采取方法去除碳。本工作的重点是利用低成本的一次性催化剂作为首选碳成核位点的独特方法，以解决催化剂失活和结焦的问题。这项工作将集中在两种反应器类型上：i)浮动（气溶胶）催化剂反应器和ii)填充床反应器。在浮式催化剂系统中，悬浮在气流中的二茂铁纳米颗粒将被用作碳成核位点，在那里碳可以积聚并从反应器中去除。同时，将探讨在填充床反应器中使用低成本天然含铁矿物（如褐铁矿、赤铁矿和磁铁矿）的可行性。这项工作的目标是开发天然气热催化分解（TCD）反应器的开源模型。模型开发将与验证模型的实验工作并行进行。

Canada's energy sector is facing major disruption in the face of climate change. For Canada to make its climate goals the Canadian oil and gas sector must produce vast amounts of hydrogen with little to no greenhouse gas emissions. A developing method of producing hydrogen from natural gas is thermal decomposition; where the gas is heated in the absence of oxygen to produce hydrogen, solid carbon, and small amounts of higher order hydrocarbons. Catalysts are often used in methane pyrolysis to improve conversion efficiency at lower temperatures. Carbon build-up (coke) in the reactor is a challenge in reactor design and methods are needed to remove the carbon. This work focuses on unique approaches in using low-cost disposable catalysts as preferred carbon nucleation sites in order to solve the problem of catalyst deactivation and coking. The work will focus on two reactor types: i) floating (aerosol) catalyst reactors and ii) packed-bed reactors. In the floating catalyst system nanoparticles of ferrocene suspended in the gas flow will be used as carbon nucleation sites where carbon can accumulate and be removed from the reactor. In parallel, the feasibility of using low-cost natural iron-containing minerals (e.g. limonite, hematite, and magnetite) in packed-bed reactors will be explored. The objective of this work is to develop open-source models for natural-gas thermo-catalytic decomposition (TCD) reactors. Model development will be done in parallel with experimental work to validate the models.