Hydrogen Selective SiCH Inorganic–Organic Hybrid/γ-Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> Composite Membranes

oleh: Miwako Kubo, Ryota Mano, Misako Kojima, Kenichi Naniwa, Yusuke Daiko, Sawao Honda, Emanuel Ionescu, Samuel Bernard, Ralf Riedel, Yuji Iwamoto

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2020-09-01

Deskripsi

Solar hydrogen production via the photoelectrochemical water-splitting reaction is attractive as one of the environmental-friendly approaches for producing H<sub>2</sub>. Since the reaction simultaneously generates H<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>2</sub>, this method requires immediate H<sub>2</sub> recovery from the syngas including O<sub>2</sub> under high-humidity conditions around 50 °C. In this study, a supported mesoporous γ-Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> membrane was modified with allyl-hydrido-polycarbosilane as a preceramic polymer and subsequently heat-treated in Ar to deliver a ternary SiCH organic–inorganic hybrid/γ-Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> composite membrane. Relations between the polymer/hybrid conversion temperature, hydrophobicity, and H<sub>2</sub> affinity of the polymer-derived SiCH hybrids were studied to functionalize the composite membranes as H<sub>2</sub>-selective under saturated water vapor partial pressure at 50 °C. As a result, the composite membranes synthesized at temperatures as low as 300–500 °C showed a H<sub>2</sub> permeance of 1.0–4.3 × 10<sup>−7</sup> mol m<sup>−2</sup> s<sup>−1</sup> Pa<sup>−1</sup> with a H<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub> selectivity of 6.0–11.3 under a mixed H<sub>2</sub>-N<sub>2</sub> (2:1) feed gas flow. Further modification by the 120 °C-melt impregnation of low molecular weight polycarbosilane successfully improved the H<sub>2</sub>-permselectivity of the 500 °C-synthesized composite membrane by maintaining the H<sub>2</sub> permeance combined with improved H<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub> selectivity as 3.5 × 10<sup>−7</sup> mol m<sup>−2</sup> s<sup>−1</sup> Pa<sup>−1</sup> with 36. These results revealed a great potential of the polymer-derived SiCH hybrids as novel hydrophobic membranes for purification of solar hydrogen.