University of California

Ches Upham

Eric W McFarland

Clarke Palmer

Horia Metiu

Davide Mannini

Michael Gordon

Shizhao Su

Dohyung Kang

Jiren Zeng

Nazanin Rahimi

The reaction rate of hydrocarbon pyrolysis can be increased to produce solid carbon and hydrogen by the use of molten materials which have catalytic functionality to increase the rate of reaction and physical properties that facilitate the formation and contamination-free separation of the solid carbon. Processes, materials, reactor configurations, and conditions are disclosed whereby methane and other hydrocarbons can be decomposed at high reaction rates into hydrogen gas and carbon products without any carbon oxides in a single reaction step. The process also makes use of specific properties of selected materials with unique solubilities and/or wettability of products into (and/or by) the molten phase to facilitate generation of purified products and increased conversion in more general reactions.

Simultaneous reaction and separation of chemicals

Growing community of inventors

Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

Ches Upham