InECN?s vision hydrogen separation membranes will play a key role in future
power production systems and industrial chemical production processes.
The driving force for the application of these membranes is that during
reaction favourable thermodynamics can be utilised to increase efficiency
while elegantly CO2 can be captured under high pressure or
chemical products can be obtained cost-effectively.
Applications
envisaged and currently investigated are:
·
process integrated hydrogen
membrane reactors for reforming, water gas shift and production of paraffins
with parallel removal of hydrogen,
·
small-scale efficient hydrogen
production with membrane reactors,
·
hydrogen recovery from industrial
(waste) streams.
In
the above processes membrane separation can only be economically viable
using current thin layer palladium alloy membrane technology, however
a further increase in flux and/or decrease in membrane price is absolutely
needed to convince the process owners of the suitability of this promising
technology. Membrane development
at ECN focuses on the development of thinner and cheaper metallic membranes
with higher hydrogen permeation rates. Important activities concern
the development of reproducible manufacturing techniques for porous
stainless steel supported thin layer palladium alloy membranes, improvement
of long-term stability and prevention of performance decrease due to
poisonous adsorbing gas components such as CO or sulphur. The research
is guided and supported by advanced process studies and flowsheet calculations
using membrane reactor simulators and membrane reactor testing under
simulated realistic conditions. This paper gives an overview
of the results and current status of the membrane materials development
as part of the R&D trajectory of hydrogen membrane reactors at ECN.