Recently, the 863 Program “The investigation and large-scale manufacturing of ultra-pure hydrogen separation membrane materials”by Small Carbon Molecules & Hydrogen Utilization Group at DICP received high appraisal from the expert panel organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The expert group agreed that the technical indicators were successfully completed. Both magnifying preparation technology of palladium composite membrane material and industrial-scale ultra-pure hydrogen production technology have extensive values of application and promotion which has established a good foundation for the industrialization.
The metal palladium composite membranes purify hydrogen with solution-diffusion theory. They can be used for quietly hydrogen separation, high-pure hydrogen purification and also emerging strategic areas such as semiconductors, LED, photovoltaic power generation, fuel cell and rocket fuel. The research group has been engaged in the preparation and application of palladium composite membrane for a long time. They developed a number of key technologies for palladium membrane preparation. They took the lead to develop a highly efficient multi-channel palladium membrane separator and had abundant experience and a large amount of technologies in support modification, defect repair for palladium membrane, preparation of alloy membrane and sealing of membrane materials and so on with a number of domestic and foreign patents authorized. The group has been involved as an important partner in the EU program CACHET and CACHET II and confirmed firstly the economic feasibility of the palladium composite membrane for carbon dioxide capture.
In the 863 program “The investigation and large-scale manufacturing of ultra-pure hydrogen separation membrane materials”, the group developed the high-performance metal palladium composite membrane material and successfully achieved large-scale production for hydrogen. They finished an industrial-scale ultra-pure hydrogen purification plant demonstration at a capacity above 800 Nm3/h (purity of 99.9999%) and a technology demonstration plant at a capacity 30 Nm3/h ultra-pure hydrogen (purity> 99.999999%).(Text by JIA Haiyuan and LI Hui)