Methane decomposition over Fe supported catalysts for hydrogen and nano carbon yield

Abstract Production of hydrogen, being an environmentally friendly energy source, has gained a lot of attention in the recent years. In this article, iron-based catalysts, with different active metal loadings, supported over magnesia and titania are investigated for hydrogen production via catalytic decomposition of methane. The catalytic activity and stability results revealed that magnesia supported catalysts performed better than titania supported catalysts. Hydrogen reduction temperature of 500°C was obtained suitable for catalyst activation. For magnesia supported catalysts, only higher loadings i.e., 30% and 40% Fe-Mg catalysts showed reasonable activity, while all titania supported catalysts presented less activity as well as deactivation. Among all the catalysts, 30% Fe/MgO catalyst displayed better activity. The formation of carbon nanofibers was evidenced from morphological analysis. FESEM and TEM images showed the generation of nonuniform carbon nanofibers with broader diameter. The catalysts were characterized using different techniques such as BET, H2-TPR, O2-TPO, XRD, TGA, FESEM and TEM.