Production of hydrogen and carbon nanomaterials using transition metal catalysts through methane decomposition

In this work, we synthesized monometallic catalysts based on Ni, Cu, Co, Mn, Fe, Zn, and W supported on Mesoporous Santa Barbara Amorphous-15 (SBA-15) to produce hydrogen and carbon nanomaterials through catalytic methane decomposition (CMD). Highly dispersed metal oxides supported on the SBA-15 surface promotes the formation of either carbon nanotubes or carbon nanofibers after CMD. Furthermore, the catalytic activity results showed the Ni/SBA-15 catalyst performed the highest methane conversion (40%) as well as it displayed superior stability during 13 h at 500 °C (23% of conversion). The resulting nanoparticle oxides, except for the Zn sample that presented a high dispersion throughout the SBA-15.