Catalytic role of defective carbon in the methane decomposition for CO and CO$_{2}$-free hydrogen generation
POSTER
Abstract
Decomposition of methane is an environmentally attractive approach to CO and CO$_{2}$-free hydrogen production. The decomposition of methane over defective carbon was studied by using state of the art first principles modeling techniques. Our studies demonstrate that the defective carbon itself can be used as catalyst for methane decomposition, without the need for other catalysts like transition metals or oxides, and the catalytic sites in defective carbon can be regenerated by the deposition of carbon decomposed from methane, to make the hydrogen production a continuous process. Additionally; since no other gases are produced in the process, the cost of CO$_{2}$ sequestration and hydrogen purification from CO contamination will be dramatically reduced.