Catalytic characteristics of carbon black for methane decomposition at high temperatures were investigated. A fixed bed reactor was made of carbon steel with 28 mm I.D and 450 mm height. The reaction was carried out under atmospheric pressure at temperature of 1,293-1,443 K. The objective was to investigate the catalytic activity of carbon black at high temperature, similar to the manufacturing process of carbon black. Almost 100% methane conversion was observed at 1,443 K, and the activation energy of the catalytic reaction over carbon black was 198 kJ/mol.
The specific surface area decreased as the amount of deposited carbon increased. Since a large amount of the produced carbon was deposited on the surface, the increase of aggregates size and protrusions size of deposited carbon was larger than in the results of previous work.