Suitability of titania and magnesia as support for methane decomposition catalyst using iron as active materials

Production of hydrogen, being an environmentally friendly energy source, has gained a lot of attention in recent years. The scope of the present research is to investigate the production of hydrogen with the help of methane’s catalytic decomposition. The iron-based catalysts, calcined at different temperatures (300–800°C), supported over different kinds of support materials such as magnesia and titania, are examined by catalytic decomposition of methane for the production of hydrogen. The catalysts were prepared by incorporating different methods, including impregnation and co-precipitation. The catalytic activity results revealed that, for both impregnated and co-precipitated catalysts, the calcination temperature of 500°C performed relatively better. For co-precipitated catalysts, Fe–Mg-CP catalyst gives higher CH₄ conversion and H₂ yield as compared to Fe–Mg-Imp catalyst. Conversely, all titanium supported catalysts exhibited less activity as well as deactivation. Among magnesia supported catalysts, the Fe–Mg-CP catalyst presented the best activity (about 65% conversion) for the time period of 3 h on the stream. The study revealed the inappropriateness of TiO₂ support for Fe catalysts in the catalytic methane decomposition. The formation of carbon nanotubes over both impregnated and co-precipitated catalysts was evidenced from morphological analysis. The fresh and spent catalysts were characterized using different techniques such as BET, H₂-TPR, O₂-TPO, XRD, TGA, FESEM and TEM.