La₂O₃ supported bimetallic catalysts for the production of hydrogen and carbon nanomaterials from methane

The production of hydrogen and carbon nanomaterials was investigated via catalytic decomposition of natural gas. Bimetallic catalysts, containing Ni and Co, supported over La₂O₃ were tested for decomposition reaction. The variation in metal loading, gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) and reaction temperature were studied to assess the influence of these important parameters on the catalytic performance. The catalytic testing and characterization results revealed that among all the tested catalysts, the catalyst containing 12.5 wt% Ni and 12.5 wt% Co supported over La₂O₃ showed higher methane conversion as well as carbon nanomaterials yield. Different characterization techniques such as Inductively coupling plasma atomic absorption spectroscopy (ICP-AES), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were employed to study the morphological nature of the catalysts before and after reaction.