Hydrogen Production from Methane Via Direct Highpower Irradiation of Catalysts

Abstract

Taking into account the great world supply of natural gas, one of the most promising ways of hydrogen production is a catalytic processing of methane. For this aim a set of reactions, such as has been suggested and investigated in detail. All these processes are endothermic and characterised by great deal of energy and high temperature needed for an suitable depth of methane conversion to be reached. In ordinary oven-heated catalytic reactors the delivered heat, first, is absorbed by a steel wall and then is transferred to the catalyst bed where it is converted to chemical energy. The sufficient thermal resistance between the wall and the catalyst bed together with the low thermal conductivity of the catalyst lead to a limitation of the heat flux arrived to the catalyst by the values of about 5–10 W/cm². Under these conditions one cannot provide the process of energy conversion with specific power loading w = W _chem/V (W _chem is the enthalpy change during the energy accumulating reaction per unit time, V is the catalyst volume) larger than 5–10 W/cm³. Therefore, the rate of hydrogen production is far lower than the maximum one because of imperfect using the resource of catalytic activity [1].