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。加拿大要实现其气候目标，加拿大的石油和天然气部门必须生产大量的氢气，几乎没有温室气体排放。从天然气生产氢气的一种发展方法是热分解;其中气体在没有氧气的情况下加热以产生氢气，固体碳和少量的高级烃。在甲烷热解中经常使用催化剂以提高在较低温度下的转化效率。反应器中的碳积聚（焦炭）是反应器设计中的一个挑战，并且需要去除碳的方法。这项工作的重点是独特的方法，在使用低成本的一次性催化剂作为优选的碳成核位点，以解决催化剂失活和焦化的问题。这项工作将集中在两种反应器类型：i）浮动（气溶胶）催化剂反应器和ii）填充床反应器。在浮动催化剂系统中，悬浮在气流中的二茂铁纳米颗粒将用作碳成核位点，其中碳可以积聚并从反应器中除去。同时，将探索在填充床反应器中使用低成本天然含铁矿物（例如褐铁矿、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同时进行。

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.