The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new computational modeling tool that could make the production of hydrogen cheaper as the United States seeks to expand its portfolio of alternative energy supplies.
The research, supported by the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and reported in the current issue of the prestigious journal Science published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, predicts hydrogen flux through metal alloy separation membranes that could be used to produce pure hydrogen.
“This research demonstrates our vision of coupling computational and experimental methods to facilitate rapid research and development of advanced technologies,” said Anthony Cugini, focus area leader of Computational and Basic Sciences at NETL. “In essence, we are developing the computational tools to prescreen hydrogen separation membranes.”
These membranes allow pure hydrogen to pass through, while blocking impurities that are present with other gases in the production of hydrogen from fossil energy resources. Separation is a critical component of hydrogen production. Impurities lessen the effective use of hydrogen. Membranes have the ability to remove virtually all of the impurities from the hydrogen stream.
The use of advanced computing to determine the ability of candidate membranes to produce pure hydrogen would be a time- and money-saving step for hydrogen researchers. Instead of having to produce a large suite of alloys with various proportions of metals—such as palladium and copper—and then test them to determine optimum compositions for maximum hydrogen purification, they could predict in advance which compositions would have the desirable properties.
“Efficient techniques for large-scale purification of hydrogen are of worldwide interest as we work toward a hydrogen-based economy,” said John Winslow, technology manager for Coal Fuels and Hydrogen at NETL. “If high flux membranes that resist chemical contamination can be developed, the impact of these devices on industrial hydrogen purification would be dramatic.”
For more information, visit www.netl.doe.gov.