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Hydrogen separation and purification membranes
Our research goal is to develop new nanostructured ceramic membranes to separate and purify high value gases, such as hydrogen.
Low temperature fuel cells require high purity hydrogen, typically 99.999% pure.
Impurities such as CO, CO2 and SOX, at ppm levels, poison the precious metal catalysts used in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells and react with the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) electrolyte in alkaline fuel cells.
Robust alumina ceramic template
The picture above shows a plan view of a robust alumina ceramic template with collinear pores of extreme aspect ratio, fabricated using advanced anodisation processes. This processing enables us to accurately control the pore diameter, length and inter-pore spacing in the ceramic template.
We have deposited nanoscaled palladium metal coatings across these templates to create hydrogen-specific membranes capable of excluding all other gases.
These membranes have been used to separate hydrogen from a H2, N2, CO2 gas mixture at temperatures up to 600°C.