Hydrogen and Nanostructured Carbon by Plasma Decomposition of Natural Gas

This report describes a commercial plasma reactor system for the GHG-free production of hydrogen enriched natural gas (HENG) using natural gas as a feedstock. The process demonstrated stable operation for the production of 20 vol% HENG fuel. The specific energy requirements of the process were found to be competitive with other GHG-free hydrogen production processes. The HENG fuel produced in the process was used as a fuel for a commercial hot water heater and demonstrated reductions of ca. 22% in the NOx emissions of the system boiler. The solid carbon by-product of the process was found to consist of a mixture of amorphous and nanostructured carbons. The nanostructured material was composed of stacked graphene layers of up ca. 7-10 layers thickness and 100 nm diameter.