Abstract
Catalytic activities of color and conductive carbon blacks in ethane decomposition for $CO_2-free$ hydrogen production were investigated. The ethane decomposition was carried out in a conventional fixed bed reactor under atmospheric pressure at 973-1173 K for 2 hours. When the decomposition in the presence of carbon black was compared with the non-catalytic thermal decomposition, the former exhibited significantly higher ethane conversion, higher C(s) selectivity and lower ethylene selectivity with small increase of the methane selectivity, which resulted in higher hydrogen yield. This indicates that carbon black is catalytically effective for dehydrogenation of ethane as well as subsequent decomposition of ethylene. All the carbon blacks exhibited stable catalytic activity with time. In durability tests, fluffy N-330 and BP2000 maintained their activities for 36 hours.