This paper summarizes R&D activities and progress at NORAM Engineering and the University of British Columbia (UBC) on preparation and testing of thin palladium-based membranes and their applications. Most of these activities were carried out internally at NORAM, some jointly with UBC and their spin-off company, Membrane Reactor Technology (MRT) through a wide range of projects. Key results out...

Membrane technology applied in the chemical and energy industry has the potential to overcome many drawbacks of conventional technologies such as the need of large volume plants and large CO2 emissions. Recently, it has been reported that this technology might become more competitive...

An innovative process for the microfabrication of Pd-based membranes (Pd and Pd-Ag) on a <110> silicon wafer is presented. Pd-Ag alloy films containing 23wt% Ag are prepared by a dual-sputtering from pure Pd and Ag targets. In the first step, deep grooves are KOH etched in one side of a <110> oriented silicon wafer, leaving membranes with a thickness of ca. 50 μm. After Pd alloy deposition on t...

The present work is focused on the investigation of the performance and long-term stability of two composite palladium membranes under different operating conditions. One membrane (Pd/porous stainless steel (PSS)) is characterized by a ~10 µm-thick palladium layer on a porous stainless steel substrate, which is pretreated by means of surface modification and oxidation; the other membrane (Pd/Al...

Hydrogen selective Pd and Pd alloy membranes can improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the coal gasification process by recovering high purity H2 from the syngas. Also, the high pressure CO2 in the retentate reduces the cost of carbon capture required for carbon sequestration. However, small quantities of H2S present in the gas stream poison the Pd membranes and reduce the hydrogen p...

In this paper, a process for the microfabrication of a wafer-scale palladium—silver alloy membrane (Pd–Ag) is presented. Pd–Ag alloy films containing 23 wt% Ag were prepared by co-sputtering from pure Pd and Ag targets. The films were deposited on the unetched side of a 110 -oriented silicon wafer in which deep grooves were etched in a concentrated KOH solution, leaving silicon membranes with a...

Thin Pd–40%Cu films were obtained via the classical melting and rolling method, magnetron sputtering, modified with nanostructured functional coatings to intensify process of hydrogen transportation. The by electrodeposition, according method obtaining palladium black “Pd–Au nanoflowers” spherical pentagonal particles, respectively. experiment results demonstrated highest catalytic activity (89...

Submicron thick palladium–silver alloy films with 23 wt.% of silver (Pd–Ag23) have been synthesized by simultaneous sputtering from pure targets of Pd and Ag. Full characterization of the deposited films was performed by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, highresolution scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. The analytical res...

This work addresses the use of TiO2-based particles as an intermediate layer for reaching fully dense Pd-membranes by Electroless Pore-Plating long-time hydrogen separation. Two different layers formed raw and Pd-doped TiO2 were considered. The estimated Pd-thickness composite membrane was reduced in half when ceramic doped with Pd nuclei before their incorporation onto porous support vacuum-as...