Hydrogen permeation studies of composite supported alumina-carbon molecular sieves membranes: Separation of diluted hydrogen from mixtures with methane

摘要

One alternative for the storage and transport of hydrogen is blending a low amount of hydrogen (up to 15 or 20%) into existing natural gas grids. When demanded, hydrogen can be then separated, close to the end users using membranes. In this work, composite alumina carbon molecular sieves membranes (Al-CMSM) supported on tubular porous alumina have been prepared and characterized. Single gas permeation studies showed that the H-2/CH4 separation properties at 30 degrees C are well above the Robeson limit of polymeric membranes. H-2 permeation studies of the H-2-CH4 mixture gases, containing 5-20% of H-2 show that the H-2 purity depends on the H-2 content in the feed and the operating temperature. In the best scenario investigated in this work, for samples containing 10% of H-2 with an inlet pressure of 7.5 bar and permeated pressure of 0.01 bar at 30 degrees C, the H-2 purity obtained was 99.4%. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).