We are pleased to inform that Braden Gilleland, a first-year PhD student at PSEL, has been awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

The broad goal of the project is to develop Methane Pyrolysis (or Methane Cracking) as a more economically viable way to decarbonize hydrogen production – which is itself responsible for about 1% of global CO2 emissions, and is mainly used for ammonia production and petroleum refining. In particular, Methane Pyrolysis has more potential to reach parity with existing fossil approaches than alternative carbon-neutral approaches like Electrolysis.

Braden's research is concerned with developing a robust model which can be used to design and size a commercial reactor system.  Experiments on a small scale system will guide model development towards selecting valid kinetic parameters, as well as solving technical challenges that come with high temperature (~1200-1400°C) liquid metal bubble column reactors. 

Congratulations, Braden!