Palladium/Copper Alloy Composite Membranes for High Temperature Hydrogen Separation Progress Report (open access)

Palladium/Copper Alloy Composite Membranes for High Temperature Hydrogen Separation Progress Report

This report summarizes progress made during the first year of research funding from DOE Grant No. DE-FG26-03NT41792 at the Colorado School of Mines. The period of performance was September 1, 2003 through August of 2004. Composite membranes, consisting of a thin Pd alloy film supported on a porous substrate have been investigated as a means of reducing the membrane cost and improving H{sub 2} flux. An electroless plating technique was utilized to deposit subsequent layers of palladium and copper over zirconia and alumina-based microfilters. The composite membranes thus made were annealed and tested at temperatures ranging from 250 to 500 C, under very high feed pressures (up to 450 psig) using pure gases and gaseous mixtures containing H{sub 2}, CO, CO{sub 2}, H{sub 2}O and H{sub 2}S, with the purpose of determining the effects these variables had on the H{sub 2} permeation rate, selectivity and percent recovery. The inhibition caused by CO/CO{sub 2} gases on a 7 {micro}m thick Pd-Cu composite membrane was less than 17% over a wide range of compositions at 350 C. H{sub 2}S caused a strong inhibition of the H{sub 2} flux of the same Pd-Cu composite membrane, which is accentuated at levels of 100 ppm …
Date: August 31, 2004
Creator: Way, J. Douglas
System: The UNT Digital Library