Experimental analysis of plasma and heating effect on H2 permeation behavior through Pd-Cu40% membranes in 1mm gap length plate reactor

In this work, experimental analysis of hydrogen permeation behavior under heating only and plasma-heating effect were studied in 15 mu m and 20 mu m Pd-Cu40% membrane thicknesses. Apure hydrogen gas at feeding pressure of 100 kPa was injected in 1 mm gap length plate micro-channel reactor (PMCR). The permeated hydrogen flux through Pd-Cu40% membranes was measured under heating only experiment at PMCR heating temperature range of 423-573 K and hydrogen flow rates of 0.1-1 L/min. In the plasma- heating experiments, dielectric barrier discharge plasma (DBD) were used at the applied voltage ranges of 10-16 kV, PMCR heating temperatures 423-573 K and hydrogen flow rate 0.1 L/min. The hydrogen permeability was calculated according to the Fick's and Sievert's law equation. It was found that the hydrogen permeability of heating only experiments lower than that obtained from plasma-heating experiments for both Pd-Cu membrane thickness. Further, the hydrogen permeability of the plasma-heating experiments has shown anon-linearity effect which it was presented in the pre-exponential factor and the activation energy pattern. However, it was observed that the hydrogen permeability decreased while the DBD-plasma applied voltage was high, due to the hydrogen gas reverse reaction. A comparison between the hydrogen permeability and the permeation rate% of both experiments has been developed to investigate the dependence on the membrane thickness in both experiments. The analysis shows that the permeability of 15 mu m membrane thickness was always higher than 20 mu m membrane thickness results and the maximum hydrogen permeability was at PMCR heating temperature of 573 K. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.