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着重大破坏。为了实现加拿大的气候目标，加拿大的石油和天然气行业必须生产大量氢气，而温室气体排放量必须很少或根本没有。一种正在开发的从天然气中生产氢气的方法是热分解；在没有氧气的情况下，天然气被加热以产生氢、固体碳和少量的高阶烃。甲烷裂解常采用催化剂，以提高甲烷的低温转化效率。反应器中的积碳(焦炭)是反应堆设计中的一个挑战，需要采用各种方法来去除这些碳。为了解决催化剂失活和结焦的问题，本工作重点研究了使用低成本一次性催化剂作为首选成核点的独特方法。这项工作将集中在两种类型的反应器上：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被用作碳成核位置，在那里碳可以积累并从反应器中移除。同时，将探索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.