The paper presents the results of modeling the radical chain pyrolysis of methane in a flow reactor and a molten-metal bubble reactor at an initial temperature of 1300–1800 K, a pressure of 1–4 atm, and an additional radical concentration of 0–0.05%. It has been found that during equilibrium methane pyrolysis in the bubble reactor, the gas temperature decrease does not exceed 8% and the methane conversion at 1300 K increases from 6% (in a flow reactor) to 30% without changing the induction period, while it exceeds 60% at 1600 K. An additional radical concentration of 0.005% reduces the induction period of nonequilibrium methane pyrolysis at 1300 K from 15 to 1 ms, which corresponds to the equilibrium induction period of pyrolysis at 1500 K. The composition of methane pyrolysis products and the sensitivity coefficient of hydrogen synthesis have been analyzed.
Pushkarev et al. (Sun,) studied this question.