Chemical kinetics of two-step thermochemical decomposition of hydrogen sulfide over nickel sulfide

Abstract

The study develops a multistep reaction mechanism for a two-step thermochemical cycle that produces hydrogen from H2S decomposition, using nickel sulfide as a catalyst. Two mechanisms were investigated: 1) a gas-phase mechanism that occurs without a Ni catalyst to determine the contribution of thermal decomposition to the overall reaction without a catalyst, and 2) a microkinetic model of the catalytic Ni surface phase to examine the key parameters affecting the overall cycling process and H2S conversion efficiency. Both mechanisms were validated using CHEMKIN-Pro software to analyze the experimental data and trends. The study showed that gas-phase H2S conversion was not kinetically significant below 850 °C. The microkinetic model showed that most H2S was transformed into H2 and NiS products when the sulfurization temperature reached 500 °C. Additionally, the site fraction of NiS decreased while the number of free active nickel sites increased as the regeneration temperature increased from 500 °C to 800 °C. A temperature limit of 700 °C was set for the regeneration step due to the agglomeration behavior of nickel sulfide particles.