Hydrogen production from natural gas and hydrogen sulphide

Abstract A promising method for hydrogen production from the reaction of hydrogen sulphide and methane is studied. The equilibrium composition of the gaseous mixture CH 4 /H 2 S/H 2 /CS 2 /S 2 /C 2 H 6 /C 2 H 4 is calculated over a temperature range of 973 to 1098 K under 0.1 MPa pressure. It is shown that at equilibrium state the gas mixture practically contains CH 4 , H 2 S, H 2 and CS 2 when the initial gas mixture contains 10–90% mole/mole hydrogen sulphide. Experiments were carried out in a thermal non-catalytic and in a MoS 2 catalytic tubular reactor. A comparison of the experimental data is presented. It is shown that the catalytic reaction rates are much greater than the thermal ones. The catalyst is irreversibly deactivated but after 240 × 10 3 s in operation it reaches a level of constant, about 50%, remaining activity. An economic evaluation of the process is also presented.