Methane pyrolysis research yields clean hydrogen and high-quality graphite as a byproduct

Researchers developing a cleaner hydrogen production route via methane pyrolysis found that the process also yields high-quality graphite. Methane pyrolysis splits methane into hydrogen and solid carbon instead of CO2, but scaling it up requires an efficient way to supply heat. The team addressed that by heating the reactor internally using some of the hydrogen produced during the reaction. The leftover carbon turned out to be high-quality graphite, which could become a saleable byproduct. If the graphite can be recovered at commercial purity and volume, it improves the economics of low-carbon hydrogen. The catch is that pyrolysis still depends on methane feedstocks, so the overall climate benefit depends on methane source and leakage controls.