Title
Hydrogen permeation and stability in ultra-thin Pd–Ru supported membranes
Date Issued
04 March 2020
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Liu J.
Bellini S.
de Nooijer N.C.A.
Sun Y.
Tang C.
Li H.
Gallucci F.
Caravella A.
TECNALIA
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
In this paper, we report the performance of supported Pd–Ru membranes for possible applications to hydrogen purification and/or production. For this purpose, we fabricated three ultra-thin α-alumina-supported membranes by combined plating techniques: a Pd–Ag membrane (3 μm-thick ca.) and two Pd–Ru (1.8 μm-thick ca.). The former is set as a benchmark for comparison. The membranes were characterised using different methodologies: permeation tests, thermal treatment and SEM analysis. Preliminary leakage tests performed with nitrogen has revealed that the two Pd–Ru membranes, namely PdRu#1 and PdRu#2, show a non-ideal (non-infinite) selectivity, which is relatively low for the former (around 830 at 400 °C) and sufficiently high for the latter (2645 at 400 °C). This indicates a relevant presence of defects in the PdRu#2 membrane, differently from what observed for the Pd–Ag and PdRu#1 ones. The permeation tests show that the hydrogen permeating flux is stable up to around 550 °C, with an apparently unusual behaviour at higher temperatures (600 °C), where we observe a slightly decrease of hydrogen flux with an increase of the nitrogen one. Moreover, a peculiar bubble-shaped structure is observed in the metal layer of all membranes after usage by means of SEM image analysis. This is explained by considering the effect of the Pd-alloy grain surface energy, which tends to minimise the exposed surface area of the grain interface by creating sphere-like bubble in the lattice, similar to what occurs for soap bubbles in water. The above-mentioned decrease in hydrogen flux at 600 °C is explained to be caused by the bubble formation, which pushes the alloy deeper in the support pores.
Start page
7455
End page
7467
Volume
45
Issue
12
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Química Ingeniería de procesos
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85064429636
Source
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
ISSN of the container
03603199
Sponsor(s)
A. Caravella has received funding through the “Programma Per Giovani Ricercatori «Rita Levi Montalcini»” granted by the “ Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca, MIUR ” (Grant no. PGR12BV33A ), which is gratefully acknowledged. H. Li has received financial support from the 100-Talent Project of CAS, National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21676265 ; 51501177 ; 21306183 ), and The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of the People's Republic of China (Grant No. 2016YFE0118300 ).
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus