20120140504022 2

International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), ISSN 0976 –
6480(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6499(Online) Volume 5, Issue 4, April (2014), pp. 205-212 © IAEME
205
HYDROGEN PERMEATION BEHAVIOR AND ANNEALING IN
COMPOSITE PALLADIUM MEMBRANES AT HIGH TEMPERATURE
Abubakar Alkali*1
, Edward Gobina1
1
Robert Gordon University, School of Engineering, Riverside East, Garthdee Road, Aberdeen,
AB10 7GJ, United Kingdom.
ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this work is to investigate the hydrogen permeation behavior and also
the effect of annealing in Pd and Pd/Ag composite membranes both of 2 µm thickness prepared on α-
Al2O3 support using electroless plating method. Pd and Pd/Ag membranes were prepared in a
hydrazine based electroless plating bath. Single component hydrogen permeation tests were
conducted to investigate the hydrogen permeation behavior of the membranes and the effect of
annealing at different temperatures. The Palladium membrane displayed a H2 flux of up to 4.32E +
01 cm3
cm-2
min-1
at 723 K. The Pd/Ag membrane displayed a slightly higher H2 flux of up to 4.57E
+01 at 723 K. Annealing the membrane greatly enhanced the H2 flux to about two-fold from 4.32E
+01 cm3
cm-2
min-1
to 8.57E + 01 cm3
cm-2
min-1
for the palladium membrane and up to 8.72E +01
cm3
cm-2
min-1
for the Pd/Ag at 873 K.
Keywords: Hydrogen Flux, Electroless Plating, Palladium Membranes, Palladium/Silver
Membranes, Annealing, Activation Energy.
INTRODUCTION
Hydrogen separation and purification technologies are becoming increasingly popular as a
result of the importance of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier (1)
. Hydrogen is used in several
industrial processes such as petroleum refining, production of ammonia, production of methanol,
petrochemical industries and semi conductor industries (2)
. The demand for high purity hydrogen is
rising especially when juxtaposed with the importance of hydrogen as an alternative source of energy
in view of the current global challenges of energy insecurity and climate change. It is in the light of
these challenges that interest has spiked up in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) due
to their environmental friendliness and economic viability3
. Moreover the development of hydrogen
fuel cell vehicles has boosted motivation in hydrogen separation and purification processes using
inorganic membranes (4)
.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH IN ENGINEERING
AND TECHNOLOGY (IJARET)
ISSN 0976 - 6480 (Print)
ISSN 0976 - 6499 (Online)
Volume 5, Issue 4, April (2014), pp. 205-212
© IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp
Journal Impact Factor (2014): 7.8273 (Calculated by GISI)
www.jifactor.com
IJARET
© I A E M E

206
It is generally acknowledged that the world is now in a transition from a fossil fuel based to a
hydrogen energy system and albeit it will take more years to complete this transition to hydrogen
based global energy system, this interim period should be used to develop or optimize technologies
for hydrogen separation and purification (5)
. Presently, steam methane reforming is the most widely
used method for hydrogen production but the method is not in tandem with the much envisaged
global clean energy future for several reasons such as high energy consumption, threat of impurities
and cost (6)
. More critically, greenhouse gases such as CO2 are produced as end products in steam
methane reforming which recycles back to the same problem of carbon emission (6)
. Palladium
membranes are the membranes of choice for hydrogen separation, purification and production due to
their infinite selectivity to hydrogen when defect free (7)
. Palladium can be used to optimize the
steam reforming process by selectively extracting high purity hydrogen from the products such that
there are no greenhouse gases such as CO and CH4
(6)
. There are several methods for the preparation
of palladium based membranes by deposition of palladium films over porous supports such as
chemical vapor deposition, electroplating, electroless plating, physical vapor deposition, magnetron
sputtering (8)
. However, electroless plating has been identified as the preferred method due to the
several advantages it has compared to other methods (8)
. Some of these advantages include easiness
of coating over any surface of any shape, low energy consumption, uniformity of coating and simple
equipment which makes it less prone to errors and complexities (9)
. Electroless plated palladium
membranes also have excellent resistance to corrosion and high mechanical stability (9)
. Several
decades back, thin palladium films were used in hydrogen separation and purification processes.
However, these thin films lack the mechanical and thermal stability to withstand harsh operating
conditions. They suffer from high cost and are prone to cracks and breaks (9)
.
To address these problems associated with thin Pd films, the concept of composite
membranes was developed in which thin, defect free palladium films are deposited over porous
support. These composites have shown to achieve higher hydrogen flux and can withstand harsh
operating conditions at low cost (8)
.
The primary objective of this work is to investigate the hydrogen permeation behavior and
the effect of annealing at higher temperature in Pd and Pd/Ag. This will provide a better
understanding on hydrogen permeation behavior in palladium and palladium-alloy membranes.
EXPERIMENTAL
In the electroless plating of Pd and Pd/Ag membranes, porous ceramic α-alumina supports of
30 nm average pore size supplied by ceramiques techniques et industrielles (CTI SA) France were
used onto which thin Pd and Pd/Ag films were deposited. The porous alumina support used for both
the Pd and Pd/Ag membranes has the specification i.d= 7 mm, o.d=10 mm, effective length= 340
mm. The same procedure was used in plating both Pd and Pd/Ag membranes only that a different
plating bath composition in a separate plating bath was used for the Pd/Ag membrane. The support
was first dried at 650
C in an oven for 2 hours to remove any moisture and calcined in air at 873 K
for 24 hours. The alumina support was then modified prior to the electroless plating through a 2 step
sensitization and activation procedure in order to seed it with Pd nuclei to create catalytic sites and
ensure a uniform deposition of the metallic layer. A 0.005 M Sn(11) solution and 0.005 M Pd(11)
solution were used as sensitization and activation solutions respectively (10)
. The support was sealed
at both ends to prevent internal deposition and immersed in the sensitization solution for 5 minutes
followed by rinsing in distilled water. The support was then immersed in the activation solution for
another 5 minutes and again rinsed in distilled water. This procedure was repeated 10 times to obtain
a more uniformly seeded support. After the sensitization and activation procedure, the seeded
support was stored overnight at room temperature.

207
Table 1: Composition of Pd and Pd/Ag plating bath
Pd Plating Bath Pd/Ag plating bath
PdCl2 = 2.7 g PdCl2 = 2.4 g
N2H4 = 10 ml AgNO3 = 0.3 g
NH4OH = 440 ml N2H4 = 6.5 ml
Na2EDTA = 70 g NH4OH = 350 ml
Na2EDTA = 31 g
A plating bath was prepared into which the seeded support was inserted at 328 K for 30
minutes. The composition of the Pd and Pd/Ag plating baths are shown in Table 1. Plating
commences after the addition of the hydrazine reducer into the plating bath. The seeded support laps
straight up during plating so as to avoid tilting sideways which could lead to uneven coating. After
deposition, the wet membrane was dried overnight at room temperature and a membrane of ~2 µm
was obtained for both the Pd and Pd/Ag membranes.
The membranes were then inserted into the membrane reactor in the permeation test plant and
Hydrogen was permeated through the membrane at 673 K for 2 hours to activate the Pd layer.
Hydrogen permeation in both the palladium and palladium alloy membranes was investigated at 623,
673 and 723 K using a permeation set up as shown in Fig. 1 comprising of a stainless steel shale and
tube membrane reactor module. After the permeation test at different temperatures, the effect of
annealing on hydrogen permeation was also tested by annealing the membrane at 673, 773 and 873
K for 10 hours each. After annealing at each of these temperatures, permeation test was carried out at
673 K after the membrane was allowed to cool down to 673 K. The feed pressure was controlled
through back-pressure regulators and metering valves monitored with a pressure gauge. The
temperature was measured using a thermocouple inserted in the membrane unit and monitored using
certified thermometer.
The flow rate was measured using a mass flow meter and gas separation data collected online
using a Varian HP 3800 Gas Chromatograph interfaced to a PC and equipped with a T.C.D and F.I.D
detectors in series.
Membrane characterization was carried out with a scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Fig.
3 shows the SEM micrograph of cross sectional area of a homogenous and uniformly coated metallic
palladium film over the porous ceramic alumina support.
Figure 1: Concept Schematic of a permeation test plant

208
Figure 2: SEM micrograph of the cross section area of the Pd layer
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Hydrogen flux was measured for both the Pd and Pd/Ag membrane at 723, 673 and 623 K for
transmembrane pressure difference of 0.05 to 0.40 bar. The effect of annealing was investigated at
873. 773 and 673 K for the same transmembrane pressure difference of 0.05 to 0.40 bar. Figures 3
and 4 show the H2 flux for single gas permeation at different temperatures for the Pd membrane and
the Arrhenius plot for temperature dependence on H2 permeation.
y = 66.247x + 0.6726
R2
= 0.9976
y = 61.216x + 0.1922
R2
= 0.991
y = 48.798x + 1.4751
R2
= 0.9738
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
723 K
673 K
623 K
Linear (723 K)
Linear (673 K)
Linear (623 K)
√P1 - √P2 (Bar)
H2Flux(cm3cm-2min-1)
Figure 3: H2 flux at different temperature for Figure 4: Arrhenius plot of temperature
the Pd membrane dependance for the Pd membrane
Fig. 3 shows the hydrogen flux for the Pd membrane at 723, 673 and 623 K. It can be
observed that the hydrogen flux is directly proportional to the difference in the downstream and
upstream hydrogen partial pressures and the H2 flux increased with increase in the feed pressure.
Pressure is the most important driving force in the permeation of hydrogen through the membrane.
The permeation of hydrogen through palladium membranes is governed by the solution-diffusion
mechanism based on the following steps (11)
: 1. External mass transfer of H2 molecules through
internal diffusion from the bulk of the gas phase onto the membrane surface on the high pressure
side. 2. Dissociative adsorption of the H2 molecules into atoms on the high pressure side. 3.
Reversible dissolution process where the H2 atoms are dissolved into the bulk palladium layer. 4.

209
Diffusion of the H2 atoms into the bulk palladium layer. 5. Reversible movement of the H2 atoms
from the bulk metallic layer to the membrane surface. 6. Reversible recombination desorption of the
H2 molecules at the low pressure side. 7. External mass transfer of H2 molecules on the membrane
surface at the low pressure side.
The rate of H2 permeation is therefore an interplay of the hydrogen diffusion through the
metallic bulk and the difference in the H2 concentration in the upstream and the downstream sides.
Thus, the concentration of H2 in the film is influenced by both the H2 solubility and its partial
pressure which implies that the rate of H2 permeation through the palladium membrane can be
expressed based on Fick’s first law (12)
:
J = Q (Ph
n
– Pl
n
)/L (1)
Where J = H2 flux, Q is the coefficient of H2 permeation, L is the thickness, Ph and Pl are the H2
partial pressure difference in the feed and permeate sides and n is the exponential factor indicating
the rate limiting step in hydrogen permeation through the palladium membrane. The effect of n value
is explained as follows:
1) When n = 0.5, the rate limiting step is the bulk diffusion of hydrogen.
2) When n= 1, the rate limiting step is the surface processes such as hydrogen dissociative
adsorption and/or hydrogen recombination and desorption at the permeate side.
3) When 1> n > 0.5, then both bulk diffusion and surface processes will constitute the rate
limiting steps in hydrogen permeation through the palladium membrane.
For the Pd membrane, a H2 flux of up to 4.32E + 01 cm3
cm-2
min-1
was observed at 723 K.
H2 flux increased with increasing transmembrane pressure difference for both Pd and Pd/Ag
membranes. Permeability depends on temperature and the Arrhenius equation enables the estimation
of the activation energy at different temperatures as described by the equation (12)
:
J = Ao exp (-Ea/RT) (2)
Where Ao is the exponential factor, R is the gas constant, and T is the operating temperature. The
experimental data of the H2 flux at different temperature was used to determine the activation energy
from the slope (M). In Fig 4, the activation energy was calculated as 8.03 kJmol-1
and it represents
the effect of temperature on H2 permeation. The higher the activation energy, the more the resistance
to H2 permeation (13)
.
As shown in Fig. 7 for the Pd/Ag membrane, the H2 flux was up to 4.57E+01 cm3
cm-2
min-1
at 723 K. This indicates a slightly higher H2 flux for the Pd/Ag membrane compared to the Pd
membrane despite the fact that both membranes are of the same thickness. This could be attributed to
the alloying factor in the Pd/Ag membrane which enhanced the permeation of hydrogen through the
membrane (6)
. The alloying with silver in the Pd/Ag membrane provided less resistance to
permeation by enhancing the solubility and subsequent diffusion of hydrogen through the membrane
hence the Pd/Ag membrane achieved a higher H2 flux compared to the Pd membrane (6)
. The
temperature dependence on hydrogen permeation across the membranes was also investigated at
different pressures and temperatures. A plot of Ln (M) against 1/T for the Pd/Ag membrane gave
activation energy of 12.16 kJ/mol for the Pd/Ag membranes as shown in Fig. 8. Both activation
energies for the Pd and Pd/Ag membranes are within those reported in literature.
The membranes were annealed at high temperatures in order to investigate the effect of
annealing on the membrane permeation behavior and also to activate the Pd metal and the alloy in
the Pd membrane and the Pd/Ag membrane respectively.

210
y = 92.512x - 3.9206
R2
= 0.9807
y = 115.28x - 5.5278
R2
= 0.9599
y = 134.29x - 2.7324
R2
= 0.9922
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
873 K
773 K
673 K
Linear (673 K)
Linear (673 K)
Linear (773 K)
Linear (873 K)
√P1 - √P2 (Bar)
H2Flux(cm3cm-2min-1) y = -1097.2x + 6.1604
R2
= 0.9991
4.50E+00
4.60E+00
4.70E+00
4.80E+00
4.90E+00
5.00E+00
1.00E-
03
1.10E-
03
1.20E-
03
1.30E-
03
1.40E-
03
1.50E-
03
1.60E-
03
1/T (K)
Ln(M)
n=1
Linear (n=1)
Figure 5: H2 flux at different temperature for Figure 6: Arrhenius plot for the annealed
the annealed Pd membrane Pd membrane
y = 50.952x + 1.0358
R2
= 0.9921
y = 60.755x + 1.3644
R2
= 0.9939
y = 70.484x + 2.0007
R2
= 0.9929
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
723 K
673 K
623 K
Linear (623 K)
Linear (673 K)
Linear (723 K)
√P1 - √P2 (Bar)
(Bar)
y = -1462x + 6.2781
R2
= 1
3.90E+00
4.00E+00
4.10E+00
4.20E+00
4.30E+00
1.30E-03 1.40E-03 1.50E-03 1.60E-03 1.70E-03
1/T (K)
Ln(M)
Series1
Linear
(Series1)
Figure 7: H2 flux at different temperature for Figure 8: Arrhenius plot for the Pd/Ag
the Pd/Ag membrane membrane
y = 137.58x - 1.6304
R2
= 0.9968
y = 109.27x - 2.1149
R2
= 0.9893
y = 91.315x - 2.4967
R2
= 0.9897
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
873 K
773 K
673 K
Linear (873 K)
Linear (773 K)
Linear (673 K)
√P1 -√P2 (Bar)
y = -1197.8x + 6.287
R2
= 0.9951
4.40E+00
4.60E+00
4.80E+00
5.00E+00
1.00E-03 1.15E-03 1.30E-03 1.45E-03 1.60E-03
1/T (K)
Ln(M)
n=1
Linear (n=1)
Figure 9: H2 flux at different temperature Figure 10: Arrhenius plot for the annealed
for the Annealed Pd/Ag Pd/Ag membrane

211
As shown in Fig. 5, results for the annealed Pd membrane indicate an increase in the H2 flux
of up to 8.57E + 01 cm3
cm2
min-1
at 873 K which is two-fold higher than that of the Pd membrane
prior to the annealing. In Fig 9, the annealed Pd/Ag membrane also displayed marked improvement
in the H2 flux from 4.57E +01 cm3
to 8.72E +01 cm3
cm-2
min-1
at 873 K. These results indicate that
annealing increased the hydrogen flux by two- fold for both the Pd and Pd/Ag membranes. The
increase in H2 flux for the annealed membranes is attributed to the removal of surface contaminants
and also the formation of hydride phases6
From Figs. 6, 8 and 10, the activation energies of annealed Pd, Pd/Ag and annealed Pd/Ag
were calculated as 9.12, 12.16 and 9.96 kJ/mol respectively. These activation energies are within the
values reported in literature (4, 14)
. The activation energy indicates that the effect of temperature on
hydrogen permeation was more pronounced for the palladium membrane compared to the Pd/Ag
membrane and also this effect was more significant when the membranes were annealed compared to
hydrogen permeation before the annealing.
CONCLUSION
Palladium and palladium alloy membranes prepared through the electroless plating method
show good promise in hydrogen separation and purification. In this work, results for the hydrogen
permeation behavior of a Pd and Pd/Ag membranes prepared through the electroless plating method
were presented. It was observed that hydrogen permeation increased with temperature and the
transmembrane pressure difference. The Pd/Ag alloy membrane also displayed slightly higher H2
flux compared to the Pd-only membrane. Alloying palladium with silver enhances the rate of H2
permeation compared to the Pd-only membrane. Investigations on the effect of annealing also show
that annealing both Pd and Pd/Ag membranes at higher temperatures decreased the permeation
resistance of the membrane and enhanced the H2 flux through the membranes by about two-fold.
This work provides a better understanding of the significance of alloying with silver and annealing at
high temperature in Pd membranes to achieve high purity hydrogen. Specifically, it has been shown
in this work that annealing both Pd and Pd/Ag membranes at high temperature up to 837 K or above
could enhance hydrogen permeation through the membrane by two-fold.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sincere thanks to Petroleum Technology Development Fund (P.T.D.F) Nigeria for funding
this research.
REFERENCES
1. Lu, G. Q., Diniz da Costa, J.C., Duke, M., Giessler, S., Socolow, R., Williams, R.H. &
Kreutz, T. (2007). Inorganic membranes for hydrogen production and purification: A critical
review and perspective. Journal of colloid and interface science, 314: 589-603
2. Nowotny, J., Sorrell, C.C., Sheppard, L.R. & Bak, T. (2005). Solar hydrogen:
Environmentally safe fuel for the future. International Journal of hydrogen energy, 30:
521-544.
3. Balamurali K.R.N., Choi, J., Harold, P.M. (2006). Electroless plating and permeation features
of Pd and Pd/Ag hollow fiber composite membranes. Journal of Membrane Science 288:
67 – 84.
4. Chee, C. & Gobina, E. (2010). Ultra-thin palladium technologies enable future commercial
deployment of PEM fuel cell systems. Membrane technology, Vol. 2010, Issue 3, 6-13.

212
5. Feroz, E. H., Raab, R.L., Ulleberg, G, T. & Alsharif, K. (2009). Global warming and
environmental production efficiency ranking of the Kyoto protocol nations. Journal of
environmental management, 90: 1178-1183.
6. Pizzi, D., Worth, R., Baschetti, M, G., Satti, G, C. & Noda K-I. (2008). Hydrogen
permeability of a 2.5 µm palladium-silver membranes deposited on ceramic supports, Journal
of membrane science, 325: 446-453.
7. Wang, L., Yoshiie, R. & Uemiya, S. (2007). Fabrication of novel Pd-Ag-Ru/Al2O3 ternary
alloy composite membrane with remarkably enhanced hydrogen permeability. Journal of
membrane science, 306: 1-7.
8. Yun, S. & Oyama, T.S. (2011). Correlations in palladium membranes for hydrogen
separation: A review. Journal of membrane science, 375 (1-2): 28-45.
9. David, E. & Kopac, J. (2010). Development of palladium/ceramic membranes for hydrogen
separation. International journal of hydrogen energy, 36: 4498-4506.
10. Cheng, Y.S., Pena, M.A., Fierro, J.L., Hui, D.C.W. & Yeung, K.L. (2002). Performance of
alumina, zeolite, palladium, Pd-Ag alloy membranes for hydrogen separation from towngas
mixture. Journal of Membrane Science 204: 329-340.
11. Gabito, J. & Tsouris, C. (2008). Hydrogen transport in composite inorganic membranes.
Journal of membrane science 312: 132-142.
12. Wu, L-Q, Xu, N. & Shi, J. (2000). Preparations of a palladium composite membrane by an
improved electroless plating technique. Ind. Eng. Chem. 39: 342-384.
13. Lee, H-J., Suda, H. & Haraya, K. (2005). Gas permeation properties in a composite
mesoporous alumina ceramic membrane. Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering. 22(5),
721-728.
14. Zeng, G. Shi, L., Liu, Y., Zhang, Y. & Sun, Y. (2014). A simple approach to uniform Pd/Ag
alloy membranes: Comparative study of conventional and silver – controlled co-plating.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. 1-10.
15. B. Chirsabesan and M.Vijay, “Membrane Assisted Electro Chemical Degradation for
Quinoline Yellow, Eosin B and Rose Bengal Dyes Degradation”, International Journal of
Design and Manufacturing Technology (IJDMT), Volume 4, Issue 2, 2013, pp. 21 - 41,
ISSN Print: 0976 – 6995, ISSN Online: 0976 – 7002.

20120140504022 2

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (18)

Destacado

Destacado (20)

Similar a 20120140504022 2

Similar a 20120140504022 2 (20)

Más de IAEME Publication

Más de IAEME Publication (20)

Último

Último (20)

20120140504022 2